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LIBRARY  OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 

AT  URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 

IN  MEMORY  OF 

STEWART  S.  HOWE 

JOURNALISM  CLASS  OF  1928 


STEWART  S.  HOWE  FOUNDATION 


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SKETCHES  gf  SPEECHES 


SKETCHES 
SPEECHES 

David  R.  Forgan 


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Privately  Printed  ^ 


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TO 
MY  WIFE 

WHOSE     DEVOTION,     EFFICIENCY    AND 

CONGENIAL    COMPANY,    THROUGH 

SHADOW     AND     SUNSHINE,     IN 

SICKNESS    AND    IN    HEALTH, 

MORE    THAN    ALL    ELSE, 

AND     DESPITE     ALL 

ELSE,  HAVE  MADE 

MY     LIFE     A 

HAPPY 

ONE 


PREFACE 

IT  is  fitting  that  I  should  offer  an  excuse  for 
the  making  of  this  book.    My  excuse  is  that 
my  family  urged  me  to  do  it.   They  desired 
something  by  way  of  autobiography,  and  they 
wanted  to  preserve  a  few  samples  of  my  speeches 
in  permanent  form.   Its  circulation  will  be  con- 
fined to  members  of  the  Forgan  Clan,  and  a  few 
friends  who  may  be  trusted  to  read  it  with  a 
friendly  and  not  too  critical  eye.    As  the  reader 
will  readily  discover,  I  have  put  little  labor  into 
the  writing  of  it.    My  aim  has  been  to  do  it  as 
simply  and  easily  as  possible.    This,  indeed,  has 
been  my  method  in  all  my  undertakings.    By  not 
atte?npting  too  much  one  avoids  the  danger  of  too 

great  a  failure. 

David  R.  Forgan 


XI 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  pAOE 

I.   St.  Andrews i 

II.   Early  Life ii 

III.  Strathkinness 27 

IV.  Golf 41 

V.   Banking  Experience  in  Scotland  and 

Canada ^^ 

VI.   Banking  Experience  in  the  U.  S.  A.  71 

VII.   St.  Andrews,  New  Brunswick .      .  83 

SPEECHES 

I.   Grip  and  Grit 89 

II.  The  New  Federal  Reserve  Banks  .113 

III.  St.  Andrews  Society  Winnipeg  An- 

nual Dinner 143 

IV.  Golf  and  Banking 157 

V.   Introduction  to  General  Dawes      .  179 

VI.   The  Duty  of  The  Banker  and  The 

Business  Man  in  War  Finance   .183 
VII.    Introducing  Marshall  Joffre      .      .195 
VIII.    Theodore  Roosevelt,  The  American 

Citizen 203 

IX.   War  and  Credit 209 


Xlll 


SKETCHES  AND 
SPEECHES 

CHAPTER    I 

ST.  AND  HEWS 

"To  fair  St.  Andrews  bound 
Within  the  cave  to  pray. 
Where  good  St.  Rule  his  holy  lay, 
From  midnight  to  the  dawn  of  day, 
Sang  to  the  billows'  sound." 

Sir  Walter  Scott. 


iPi^Pi^"^  ^^^^^^  ^^^^  °^  ^^*  ^"d^^ws  sit- 
^gfe^sj^g^^^  uated  on  the  east  coast  of  Scot- 

=@3  np^   !®i!  land  in  the  County  of  Fife  has  a 
1^^  31  population  of  less   than  eight 

^gg^^ggg  thousand.  In  America  a  town  of 
that  size,  as  a  rule,  would  con- 
tain little  of  general  interest.  When  the  visitor 
had  seen  the  Post  Office  and  the  Court  House, 

I 


2  Sketches  and  Speeches 

and  the  stores  on  "Main  Street"  his  host  would 
have  nothing  more  to  show  him,  and  nothing  of 
historical  interest  to  tell  him.  Not  so  St.  An- 
drews. That  ancient  and  royal  city  has  been  a 
religious  and  educational  center  for  more  than 
a  thousand  years.  Its  story  teems  with  char- 
acters and  incidents  prominent  in  Scotland's 
stormy  history.  For  its  beginning  we  must  go 
back  some  fourteen  centuries.  Then  the  rocky 
promontory  on  which  it  stands  was  wild  and 
wooded  —  a  haunt  of  the  wild  boar,  and  a 
hunting  ground  for  Pictish  Kings.  A  neighbor- 
ing village  is  still  known  as  Boarhills,  and  the 
City  Arms  show  a  boar  tied  to  a  tree.  Probably 
an  Irish  missionary  monk  or  hermit  took  up 
his  dwelling  in  a  lonely  corner  of  the  forest  or  in 
one  of  the  caves  on  the  coast.  A  little  later  a 
rude  monastery  arose  and  its  religious  history 
began.  Unfortunately  religious  history  is  usual- 
ly stormy,  filled  with  bitter  and  often  bloody 
quarrels  between  various  sects,  creeds,  and 
authorities.  So  we  read  of  struggles  between 
the  Columban  and  the  Roman  Churches,  and 
the  expulsion  of  the  monks  of  the  former  by  the 
King  of  the  Picts  who  sided  with  the  Roman 
authority.  Later  a  body  of  irregular  monks  ap- 
peared, known  as  the  Culdees,  who  fought  in- 
cessantly with  the  more  regular  canons  ol  the 


St,  Andrews  3 

church.  This  went  on  for  several  centuries  until 
these  mysterious  Culdees  finally  disappeared. 
Towards  the  end  of  the  eighth  century  the  bones 
of  St.  Andrew,  or  what  purported  to  be  these 
holy  relics,  were  brought  to  the  monastery, 
greatly  enhancing  its  sanctity  and  importance, 
and  thereafter  it  took  the  name  of  Scotland's  pa- 
tron saint.  Who  brought  the  saint's  bones  is  a 
matter  of  legendary  obscurity.  Some  claim  it 
was  St.  Regulus  —  the  "good  St.  Rule"  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott  in  Marmion  —  whose  tall  square 
tower  in  good  repair,  and  little  chapel  in  ruin, 
are  still  picturesque  ornaments  of  the  City. 

Miracles  were  now  wrought,  and  pilgrims 
attracted  by  the  sacred  relics.  Its  fame  in- 
creased, and  in  908  the  Bishop  of  Alban,  or 
Scotland,  made  St.  Andrews  the  seat  of  his 
primacy.  Then  followed  two  centuries  of  rather 
discreditable  church  history  during  which  re- 
ligion languished.  Towards  the  beginning  of 
the  twelfth  century  some  reformation  was 
brought  about  by  the  influence  of  a  good  wom- 
an —  Saint  Margaret  —  called  "the  sweetest 
Christian  soul  alive."  Being  the  English  wife  of 
the  Scottish  King  Malcolm,  her  opportunities 
were  equalled  by  her  power  and  her  will.  She 
took  a  deep  interest  in  the  church  at  St.  An- 
drews presenting  it  with  a  beautiful  crucifix 


4  Sketches  and  Speeches 

set  with  precious  stones,  and  she  insisted  on  re- 
form in  Lent  and  Sunday  observance,  in  strict- 
er marriage  laws,  and  In  the  restoration  of 
regular  services  by  the  monks.  New  churches 
and  chapels  arose,  a  town  of  considerable  com- 
mercial importance  for  those  times  began  to 
grow  and  St.  Andrews  started  on  its  way  to- 
ward the  ecclesiastical  capital  of  Scotland  and 
center  of  national  and  even  international  poli- 
tics which  It  ultimately  became. 

For  the  following  three  hundred  years  the 
City  was  ruled  by  a  succession  of  bishops,  gen- 
erally men  of  noble  and  sometimes  of  royal 
blood.  None  of  them  had  a  peaceful  or  happy 
time.  Quarrels  between  the  Scottish  Kings,  the 
Pope  at  Rome  and  the  different  candidates  ac- 
companied every  appointment  to  the  See  of  St. 
Andrews  and  left  hatred  and  jealousies  to 
worry  the  successful  contender.  Among  these 
bishops  four  stand  out  preeminent,  Bishops 
Arnold,  Roger,  Wishart  and  Lamberton. 

Bishop  Arnold  ruled  less  than  two  years,  but 
it  was  he  who  laid  the  foundation  of  the  famous 
St.  Andrews  Cathedral  the  ruins  of  which  still 
adorn  the  City  and  render  the  surrounding 
cemetery  impressively  beautiful.  It  was  built 
In  the  form  of  a  cross  three  hundred  and  sev- 
enty feet  in  length.  It  had  numerous  towers 


Sl  Andrew f  5 

and  turrets,  and  was  covered  by  a  copper  roof 
which  on  a  sunny  day  was  a  landmark  for  sail- 
ors far  at  sea.  It  took  one  hundred  and  fifty- 
eight  years  in  the  building,  but  it  was  ruined  in 
a  day  —  a  striking  example  of  how  much  hard- 
er it  is  to  upbuild  than  to  destroy. 

In  the  year  1200  Bishop  Roger  built  the 
Castle  as  an  Episcopal  residence.  It  was  on  a 
rocky  promontory  washed  on  two  sides  by  the 
sea,  and  guarded  by  a  moat  and  draw-bridge. 
In  it  James  I  of  Scotland  spent  his  early  years, 
and  James  III  was  born  within  its  walls  in 
1445.  In  a  corner  there  may  still  be  seen  the 
famous  dungeon  hewn  out  of  the  solid  rock  and 
shaped  like  a  bottle,  the  narrow  neck  making 
escape  from  it  almost  impossible.  It  was  fre- 
quently taken  by  the  English  and  re-taken  by 
the  Scotch,  and  once  it  fell  in  an  assault  by  the 
French  and  among  the  prisoners  captured  was 
the  Scotch  Reformer,  John  Knox,  after  which 
he  spent  two  years  in  the  "galleys."  Its  pictur- 
esque ruins  are  still  a  show  place  for  visitors  to 
St.  Andrews.  About  the  year  1874  ^  secret 
passage  was  discovered  leading  below  the  moat 
to  the  Cathedral  some  two  hundred  yards  dis- 
tant. The  existence  of  such  a  secret  means  of 
escape  from  a  Bishop's  residence  is  a  striking 
commentary  on   the  insecurity  of  those  old 


6  Sketches  and  Speeches 

times.  Bishop  Wishart  founded  the  Black 
Friars  Monastery  in  1274,  and  in  1559  it  was 
torn  down  by  the  followers  of  John  Knox  after 
three  days  preaching  by  the  Reformer  who  is 
said  to  have  told  them  to  "pull  down  the  rook- 
ery, and  the  rooks  (meaning  the  Black  Friars) 
would  flee  awa."  There  remains  only  a  lovely 
ivy-covered  ruin  in  the  playground  of  Madras 
College  —  another  interesting  spot  for  the 
visitor.  After  the  battle  of  Bannockburn  had 
brought  a  time  of  peace,  Bishop  Lamberton, 
then  in  power,  had  an  opportunity  to  repair  his 
castle,  out  of  which  the  English  had  been  driven, 
to  add  many  churches  and  chapels  and,  best  of 
all,  to  finish  and  dedicate  the  great  Cathedral  in 
1318.  That  must  have  been  a  great  day  in  the 
history  of  the  City.  Lamberton  had  crowned 
Bruce  as  King,  and  the  hero  of  Bannockburn 
was  present  with  his  Knights.  Seven  bishops 
and  fifteen  abbots  clothed  in  their  gorgeous 
robes,  and  many  nobles  and  "great  gentlemen" 
with  their  followers  graced  the  occasion,  and 
doubtless  the  pomp  and  ceremony  were  im- 
pressive. 

The  next  great  event  in  the  story  of  St.  An- 
drews was  the  founding  of  its  famous  Univer- 
sity (the  oldest  in  Scotland),  in  the  year  141 1, 
by  the  then  reigning  Bishop  Wardlaw.  It  has 


Si.  Andrews  7 

survived  while  all  other  Catholic  institutions 
have  perished  from  the  City.  It  is,  of  course, 
Catholic  no  longer.  It  celebrated  its  five  hun- 
dredth anniversary  in  191 1  with  great  pomp 
and  dignity,  and  distinguished  scholars  gath- 
ered for  the  occasion  from  all  quarters  of  the 
globe  representing  the  universities  of  all  lands. 
The  oldest  living  graduate  present  was,  I  be- 
lieve, the  uncle  of  the  present  writer,  John  Ber- 
wick. The  University  has  been  the  home  and 
the  producer  of  many  distinguished  men  to 
whom  space  will  not  permit  further  reference. 
From  the  first  it  had  a  Lord  Rector.  He  began 
by  being  the  real  head  of  the  institution,  but 
now  he  is  only  a  figurehead.  His  election  is  an- 
nually fought  over  by  the  students,  and  it  now 
means  a  passing  honor  for  some  literary  or 
political  celebrity  who  visits  St.  Andrews  and 
delivers  a  rectorial  address.  Sir  James  Barrle 
and  Rudyard  Kipling  have  been  two  of  the  lat- 
est, the  former  delivering  a  remarkable  and 
characteristic  address  on  "Courage,"  and  the 
latter  an  address  on  "Independence,"  not  up 
to  the  standard  we  should  expect  of  him. 

When  the  Reformation  of  the  Sixteenth 
Century  came  along  St.  Andrews  naturally 
was  in  the  thick  of  it.  The  story  would  be  out 
of  place  in  this  brief  sketch,  but  all  of  the  chief 


8  Sketches  and  Speeches 

actors  in  that  glorious  and  tragic  time  frequent- 
ly appeared  on  the  streets  of  the  old  City.  Here 
John  Knox  thundered  from  a  pulpit  still  shown 
to  the  visitor.  Here  is  still  to  be  seen  the 
house  where  poor  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  often 
tried  to  find  a  rest  from  her  turbulent  enemies 
and  advisers.  These  two  were  bitter  enemies, 
but  modern  Scotch  people  manage  to  sympa- 
thize with  both  of  them !  Here  Cardinal  Beaton 
burned  the  martyrs,  Patrick  Hamilton  and 
George  Wishart,  viewing  the  latter's  agonies, 
it  is  said,  from  his  castle  window,  from  which 
window,  a  few  months  later,  the  reformers  ex- 
hibited his  own  murdered  form  in  terrible  re- 
venge. That  body  still  lies  in  the  ruined  Black 
Friars'  Chapel  around  which  boys  of  Madras 
College  play  heedlessly,  and  a  monument  to 
the  martyrs  is  a  prominent  object  to  be  seen  by 
the  modern  golfer  as  he  finishes  his  round  of  the 
links  in  more  peaceful  days.  During  this  period 
the  great  Cathedral,  several  chapels,  and  the 
picturesque  castle  all  became  bare  and  tragic 
ruins.  The  Reformation  finally  resulted  in  re- 
ligious liberty  for  Scotland,  and  such  results 
apparently  have  always  to  be  fought  for  and 
died  for,  but  a  lover  of  St.  Andrews  could 
well  wish  that  the  methods  used  might  have 
spared   these  beautiful   and   richly  historical 


Sr.  Andrews  9 

buildings  to  still  adorn  the  ancient  City.  But 
the  fight  for  religious  liberty  was  a  long  one.  In 
the  Seventeenth  Century  it  developed  into  the 
sad,  bloody  and  cruel  struggle  between  the 
Covenanters  and  the  King.  Montrose,  the  per- 
secutor of  the  Presbyterians,  was  a  student  of 
St.  Andrews.  He  was  a  good  golfer,  paid  I2.50 
for  golf  balls,  and  when  sick  he  was  nursed  by 
the  daughter  of  the  club  maker,  bearing  the 
rather  suggestive  name  of  Pet. 

Many  scenes  of  the  struggle  took  place  with- 
in the  City's  gates.  Archbishop  Sharpe  was 
murdered  near  St.  Andrews  by  a  party  of  Pres- 
byterians, but  a  monument  representing  him 
as  a  martyr  was  erected  by  his  sons  in  the  Par- 
ish Church  where  it  still  stands  —  a  curious 
shrine  in  a  Presbyterian  Church!  In  1773  Bos- 
well  took  Dr.  Johnson  to  the  famous  City.  It 
had  then  lost  much  of  its  importance  and  he 
left  "filled  with  mournful  images  and  inef- 
fectual wishes." 

A  more  recent  resident  was  Dr.  Thomas 
Chalmers,  the  famous  Scottish  pulpit  orator. 
He  was  a  student  at  the  University  in  his  youth 
and  was  addicted  to  golf  and  football.  After- 
ward he  was  Assistant  Professor  of  Mathe- 
matics for  a  brief  period,  and  twenty  years 
later  when  he  had  become  a  noted  preacher,  he 


I  o  sketches  and  Speeches 

was  appointed  Professor  of  Moral  Philosophy. 
But  like  St.  Andrews'  divines  before  and  after 
him  he  did  not  find  residence  or  duty  there 
either  peaceful  or  easy.  He  flourished  in  the 
first  half  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  and  dur- 
ing that  period  Sir  Walter  Scott  also  visited 
the  City  more  than  once.  On  his  last  visit  he 
lamented  that  he  was  getting  old,  evidenced  by 
the  fact  that  he  did  not  feel  Inclined  to  climb 
the  long,  winding  stairs  Inside  the  square  tower 
of  St.  Regulus  in  order  to  enjoy  the  view  from 
the  top.  The  chairs  of  the  University  and  the 
pulpits  of  the  City  have  been  filled  from  time 
to  time  by  eminent  scholars  and  preachers,  and 
there  are  several  other  boys'  and  girls'  schools, 
so  that  the  modern  City  is  still  distinguished 
for  religion,  education  and  golf,  and  is  besides 
a  popular  summer  resort. 

In  this  Ancient  City  so  intimately  associated 
with  Scotland's  stirring  story,  so  bleak  in  win- 
ter, when  the  North  Sea  mists  prevail,  so 
charming  In  summer,  when  its  famous  golf 
courses  and  bathing  beaches  are  crowded  with 
happy  visitors  —  In  this  metropolitan  and 
royal  burgh,  so  long  turbulent,  but  now  so 
peaceful  —  on  April  i6, 1862, 1  was  born.  Like 
St.  Paul,  who  was  Saul  of  Tarsus,  I  claim  to 
have  been  born"A  citizen  of  no  mean  City." 


CHAPTER    II 


EAI(LY  LIFE 

" At  first  the  infant 

Mewling  and  puking  in  the  nurse's  arms. 

And  then  the  whining  school-boy,  with  his  satchel 

And  shining  morning  face " 

Shakespeare 


('^=)i^^(W'^'^^^  MOST  remote  recollection  goes 
^gg^tj^^jtj^^  back  three  score  years.  I  see  a 
S©5  1% /T  ®i!  puny  child  on  his  mother's  lap 
i^  ^1  who,  although  in  his  third  year, 

^®^ffl  is  not  yet  able  to  walk.  The 
^^^^^  'fe^  puniest  part  of  him  is  his  legs 
which,  in  response  to  the  coaxing  command, 
"  Show  your  little  leggies"  he  obediently  holds 
up  to  the  pitying  admiration  of  the  assembled 
adults.  The  little  leggies  are  clothed  in  little 
stockings  with  a  MacGregor  tartan  border. 
That  child  was  myself,  and  the  pride  I  had  in 
that  bright  bit  of  color  is  the  foundation  for 
my  belief  that  this  incident  is  a  genuine  recol- 

II 


I  2  Sketches  and  Speeches 

lection,  and  not  merely  a  memory  of  what  I 
was  subsequently  told.  That  I  was  born  a 
twin;  that  my  brother  was  twice  my  size;  that 
he  endured  this  life  for  only  a  few  minutes,  and 
that  I,  the  frailer  one,  was  pulled  through  by  a 
loving  and  competent  mother  are  not  recollec- 
tions. They  are  facts  often  told  me  by  my 
elders.  When  I  had  grown  to  a  fair-sized  man- 
hood and  happened  to  be  presented  to  anyone 
who  had  known  me  as  a  child,  but  had  been 
out  of  touch  with  me  since,  the  remark  was  al- 
most invariably,"  Eh, laddie,  if  ye  had'na  had 
a  gude  mither,  ye  would  'na  be  here  the  day." 
The  "little  leggies"  never  grew  to  be  big,  but  in 
after  years  they  served  to  carry  the  body  to 
which  they  have  long  been  attached  with  more 
than  average  speed  and  endurance.  When 
about  five  years  old  they  carried  me  to  the  In- 
fant School,  but  my  attendance  of  only  one 
year  there  has  left  only  the  faintest  recollec- 
tion of  the  fact.  They  next  conveyed  me  to 
Madras  College  —  an  imposing  name  for  a  day 
school  —  where  I  received  all  the  education 
I  ever  got  from  teachers.  It  was  an  excellent 
school.  Its  graduates  did  well  when  they  en- 
tered universities,  because  it  was  very  thor- 
ough in  the  fundamentals.  It  exalted  the  three 
R's  to  an  extent  that  I  think  modern  school 


Early  Life  1 3 

systems  have  sometimes  failed  to  do  —  greatly 
to  the  loss  of  their  pupils. 

My  earliest  recollection  of  my  school  days  is 
of  a  lady  teacher  who  punished  us  by  striking 
our  little  out-stretched  hands  with  a  hard- 
wood stick  about  the  thickness  of  a  golf  club 
shaft.  She  struck  with  such  force  that  the  little 
hands  showed  the  welts  for  hours  afterwards. 
But  I  have  no  recollection  of  objecting  par- 
ents! In  fact  "cruel  and  unusual  punishments" 
now  forbidden  by  law  were  not  unknown  in 
my  school  days.  For  example,  another  boy  and 
I  (when  about  fourteen)  got  into  a  fight  which 
had  scarcely  started  when  the  janitor  came 
along,  stopped  the  engagement  and  haled  us 
before  the  teacher  who  was  "Convenor  for  the 
week"  and  in  charge  of  the  discipline.  He  asked 
us  for  what  crime  we  had  been  sent  up  and  we 
replied  "for  fighting."  "Well,  and  who  beat?" 
he  demanded.  We  told  him  that  we  had  been 
interrupted  by  the  janitor  before  we  had  found 
out.  "Too  bad,  too  bad,"  he  replied,  then  turn- 
ing to  the  assembled  class  he  announced,  with 
a  smile,  "These  boys  have  been  fighting  but 
did  not  have  time  to  find  out  who  beat.  Now 
we  will  find  out  who  beat.  I  will  give  them  the 
*Tawse'  until  one  or  the  other  cries,  and  the 
first  to  cry  will  be  the  one  who  was  beaten." 


1 4  Sketches  and  Speeches 

Having  thus  put  two  Scotch  laddies  on  their 
mettle  he  got  out  his  thick  leather  belt  and 
ordered  us  to  hold  out  our  hands  time  about. 
He  then  struck  our  hands  right  and  left  alter- 
nately with  all  his  force,  and  kept  at  it  until 
the  perspiration  streamed  down  his  face.  Of 
course  neither  of  us  cried.  Finally,  he  gave  up 
with  the  remark,  "Well,  I  am  beat."  That 
night  our  hands  were  so  paralyzed  that  we 
could  not  feed  ourselves,  and  it  was  several 
days  before  either  of  us  could  hold  a  pen.  Such 
punishment  for  an  offense  involving  no  moral 
turpitude  was  a  disgrace  to  the  school  and  to 
the  teacher,  but  I  have  no  recollection  of  ob- 
jecting parents.  Parents  now-a-days  would 
have  such  a  teacher  arrested  —  and  rightly  so. 

I  could  describe  worse  cases  than  this  where 
I  was  only  a  witness,  but  the  parents  involved 
made  no  protest.  Were  parents  harder-hearted 
in  those  days  ?  I  think  not.  The  custom  and  the 
point  of  view  have  changed  —  that  is  all. 

I  can  recall  but  two  experiences  of  physical 
punishment  from  my  own  parents.  They  were 
neither  cruel  nor  unusual,  and  I  know  I  de- 
served them,  and  many  more  which  I  escaped. 

I  would  not  like  to  leave  the  impression  that 
I  look  back  on  my  school  and  school-masters 
without  affection.  Even  the  punishments,  as  a 


Early  Life  1 5 

rule,  were  of  a  moderate  kind.  I  mention  the 
severe  cases  merely  by  way  of  contrast  to  mod- 
ern ideas.  I  could  make  other  contrasts  in  favor 
of  old  Madras  College.  I  left  it  in  my  sixteenth 
year.  I  was  not  further  advanced  than  other 
boys  of  my  age,  but  I  was  sent  into  commer- 
cial life  able  to  write  a  legible  hand,  to  do  al- 
most any  problems  in  arithmetic  —  many  of 
them  mentally,  that  is,  not  putting  down  any 
figures  but  the  answer  —  and  to  write  simple 
English  clearly  and  grammatically.  In  addi- 
tion to  these  solid  accomplishments,  I  had  had 
Latin  as  far  as  Caesar,  Euclid  and  Algebra  in 
moderation,  and  I  could  read  a  French  or  Ger- 
man book  rapidly  enough  to  enjoy  the  story. 
Nor  was  Art  neglected.  We  had  an  excellent 
drawing  teacher,  and  all  kinds  of  drawing  and 
painting  were  taught  —  engineering,  mechan- 
ical, landscape,  in  water  colors,  oils,  etc.  I  still 
have  hanging  on  the  walls  of  my  home  the 
large  French  Crayon  drawings  of  dogs  and 
horses,  after  Landseer,  which  won  me  the  first 
prize  in  that  department.  No  one  notices 
them  because  they  look  just  like  engravings. 
So  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  judge,  the 
average  American  boy  of  fifteen  would  have 
difficulty  in  showing  a  better  educational 
foundation. 


I  6  Sketches  and  Speeches 

The  education  and  the  up-bringing  of  Scotch 
children  of  my  generation  were  conducted 
along  somewhat  different  lines  than  are  now 
fashionable.  Like  most  men  of  advancing  years 
I  incline  to  the  idea  that  the  old  lines  were  the 
better.  They  taught  boys  self-reliance  and  self- 
restraint.  Boys  learned  to  stand  on  their  own 
feet  and  to  do  without.  The  stories  and  jokes 
on  Scotch  Thrift  are  innumerable,  and  no  one 
enjoys  recounting  them  more  than  I.  But  I 
wish  there  were  some  stories  illustrating  the 
vice  of  modern  extravagance.  College  and  high- 
school  boys  driving  their  own  cars,  parties 
every  night  of  the  week,  three  entertainments 
in  one  evening  —  dinner,  theater  and  dance 
—  Sunday  differing  from  week  days  only  in 
longer  hours  in  bed  —  these  may  be  better  for 
boys  than  the  restraint  of  former  times,  but  I 
doubt  it.  Those  young  men  who,  in  City  life, 
attain  success  in  business  or  profession  and 
establish  a  virile  character  in  spite  of  these  al- 
luring distractions  have  my  profound  admira- 
tion. 

In  my  day  parents  demanded  respect  and 
obedience  from  their  children.  Now  parents 
are  lucky  who  are  not  mere  slavish  sources  of 
supply  to  their  children.  Parents  used  to  run 
the  family  —  now  the  family  runs  the  parents. 


Early  Life  1 7 

Probably  Scotch  parents  of  the  Victorian  era 
erred  as  much  on  the  side  of  repression  as 
Twentieth  Century  parents  err  on  the  side  of 
indulgence.  While  my  boyhood  was  a  happy 
one,  I  look  back  upon  it  with  the  conviction 
that  my  parents  themselves  and  their  con- 
temporaries got  too  little  out  of  life.  They  had 
too  much  hard  work,  too  much  monotony,  too 
little  amusement,  too  little  social  life.  Almost 
their  only  relaxation  was  Sunday  with  its 
grave,  but  to  them  enjoyable,  church  services. 
How  much  of  life  shall  be  devoted  to  having  a 
good  time  is  one  of  the  many  problems  in  which 
the  via  media  of  the  Romans  is  the  path  of 
wisdom.  But  that  path  is  always  hard  to  find 
and  harder  to  keep. 

There  were  tragic  incidents  on  the  rocky 
coast  on  which  the  "Gray  Old  City  by-the-. 
Sea"  was  situated.  In  a  winter  storm  sailing 
vessels  in  the  carrying  trade  between  Norway 
and  Sweden  and  England  were  apt  to  mistake 
the  entrance  to  St.  Andrews  Bay  for  either  the 
mouth  of  the  River  Tay  or  the  Firth  of  Forth. 
The  two  latter  were  havens  of  refuge  for  a 
storm-tossed  ship  while  to  head  in  to  the  Bay 
was  almost  certain  destruction.  A  lookout  was 
kept,  and  when  a  sailing  vessel  was  observed 
entering  our  Bay  three  guns  were  fired  to  warn 


I  8  Sketches  and  Speeches 

her  of  her  danger.  Consequently  we  boys  knew 
what  it  meant  when  on  a  stormy  day  we  heard 
the  guns.  "A  ship  in  the  Bay!"  was  the  cry, 
and  away  we  went  to  see  the  probable  wreck. 
It  was  only  on  such  occasions  that  many  of  us 
ever  played  truant  from  school.  We  knew  we 
would  get  a  licking  next  day  —  but  the  excite- 
ment was  irresistible,  for  if  the  ship  were  un- 
able to  beat  her  way  against  the  Easterly  wind 
back  out  of  the  Bay,  she  was  doomed.  St. 
Andrews'  boys,  therefore,  often  witnessed  the 
heroic  launching  of  the  lifeboat,  her  perilous 
trip  to  meet  the  ship;  the  risky  transfer  of  the 
crew  to  the  lifeboat,  and  the  triumphant  re- 
turn with  the  rescued  men.  Sometimes,  alas, 
the  ship  reached  the  rocks  before  the  lifeboat 
could  reach  her,  and  we  saw  scenes  of  drown- 
ing men  too  harrowing  to  describe  or  to  forget. 
The  crews  of  the  lifeboat  were  selected  from 
our  fishing  population,  and  were  well  qualified 
seamen.  As  a  rule  they  were  brave  and  efficient. 
On  one  occasion,  however,  I  witnessed  a  mu- 
tiny among  them.  I  never  knew  the  reason  un- 
less it  was  because  of  the  absence  of  their  usual 
leader  and  their  lack  of  confidence  in  his  sub- 
stitute. At  all  events,  they  refused  to  launch 
from  the  beach  and  were  followed  by  an  angry 
crowd  until  they  reached  the  mouth  of  the 


Early  Life  1 9 

little  River  Eden.  Here  they  launched,  rowed 
out  about  seventy-five  yards  and  there  lay  on 
their  oars  refusing  either  to  proceed  across  the 
bar  to  the  drifting  ship  or  to  return  to  the 
shore.  The  crowd  was  furiously  indignant,  but 
could  do  nothing  but  shout  abuse  at  the  crew. 
Finally  a  little,  old  retired  Admiral  of  the  Navy 
appeared  on  the  scene  and  ordered  the  crew 
to  return  to  shore.  They  were  under  Navy  con- 
trol, and  recognizing  his  authority  they  pulled 
into  the  shore  where  they  were  roughly  thrown 
out  of  the  boat,  their  cork  jackets  pulled  off, 
and  their  places  taken  by  a  volunteer  crew  of 
citizens.  Under  the  command  of  the  little 
white-haired  Admiral  who  had  donned  several 
overcoats,  loaned  by  onlookers,  and  who 
promptly  took  the  helm,  the  lifeboat  soon 
crossed  the  bar  of  the  Eden,  reached  the  ship 
in  time,  and  saved  some  thirteen  souls.  To  us 
boys  such  heroic  scenes  were  well  worth  a  lick- 
ing the  next  day! 

I  suppose  it  is  always  easy  to  note  contrasts 
between  one's  early  and  later  days. 

When  I  was  about  fourteen  I  suffered  from  a 
toothache.  On  complaining  to  my  father  he, 
without  a  look  at  the  offending  tooth,  calmly 
said  "Better  an  empty  house  than  a  bad  tenant. 
Go  over  to  Johnnie  Duncan  and  get  it  out." 


2  o  Sketches  and  Speeches 

Johnnie  Duncan  was  a  watchmaker  whose 
knowledge  of  dentistry  was  confined  to  the 
possession  and  use  of  a  "  forceps."  He  was  a 
little  wiry  man,  and  when  I  presented  myself 
he  promptly  fastened  his  instrument  to  my 
tooth  and  hung  on  —  dragging  me  all  over  the 
room  —  until  the  tooth  came  out.  I  thought 
my  head  was  coming  off,  and  Johnnie  was 
quite  worn  out  when  he  finally  succeeded. 
Holding  up  my  very  large  and  quite  sound 
tooth  to  examine  the  little  pin-point  of  decay, 
he  told  me  never  again  to  come  to  him  —  he 
wanted  to  pull  no  more  of  my  teeth!  I  never 
did! 

My  native  City  —  St.  Andrews — was  a  Sum- 
mer Resort,  and  although  the  water  was  very 
cold,  sea-bathing  was  popular.  The  men  did 
their  swimming  in  the  Witch  Lake  —  a  small 
portion  of  the  ocean  formerly  used  by  Chris- 
tians to  drown  old  ladies  in.  The  approach  to 
it  down  the  cliffs  was  by  a  long  flight  of  steps 
hewn  out  of  the  rock.  Women  were  never  seen 
anywhere  near  the  Step  Rock.  They  did  their 
bathing  in  the  surf  a  mile  away  on  the  East 
Sands.  A  number  of  bathing  coaches  was  pro- 
vided. They  looked  like  caravans,  with  steps 
leading  to  the  door  at  the  back,  and  one  small 
window  to  let  in  a  little  light.  Into  these  went 


Early  Life  2  i 

the  ladies  to  undress.  Meanwhile  an  old  man, 
nearly  blind,  driving  an  old  horse  wearing 
''blinders'*  carried  the  coaches  out  into  the  sea 
until  the  water  was  about  two  feet  deep,  when 
the  ladies,  clothed  in  skirts  reaching  to  their 
ankles,  timidly  opened  the  door  and  modestly 
moved  down  the  steps  into  the  protecting 
water.  When  they  had  had  enough  they 
climbed  back  into  the  coach  and  did  not  re- 
appear until  fully  dressed.  I  refrain  from  pur- 
suing the  contrast  by  attempting  a  description 
of  promiscuous  bathing  at  modern  resorts.  My 
modest  pen  is  quite  unequal  to  such  a  task. 

Someone  has  remarked  that  every  genera- 
tion thinks  that  the  second  after  it  is  heading 
for  destruction.  I  might  be  inclined  to  that 
view  if  I  did  not  believe,  in  spite  of  much 
superficial  evidence  to  the  contrary,  that  good 
is  slowly  conquering  evil,  and  will,  in  God's 
good  time,  surely  prevail. 

Religion  had  a  very  definite  place  in  the  life 
of  young  people  in  my  early  days.  It  was 
taught  daily  in  the  schools  to  the  extent  of 
Bible  reading  and  the  learning  of  the  Shorter 
Catechism,  and  Sunday  was  almost  wholly 
devoted  to  it.  Many  families  observed  the  good 
old  custom  of  "family  worship"  the  descrip- 
tion of  which  in  Burns'  ''Cotters'  Saturday 


2  2  Sketches  and  Speeches 

Night"  is  immortal.  Burns  claims  that  "From 
scenes  like  these  old  Scotia's  Grandeur  springs" 
and  most  people  will  admit  that  it  is  good  for  a 
family  to  recognize  God  in  their  daily  life,  and 
that  children  should  not  be  brought  up  as 
Pagans  in  a  Christian  country.  As  my  father 
was  an  Elder  in  the  Free  Church  and  my  moth- 
er was  a  very  religious  woman  the  custom  was 
regularly  observed  in  my  home. 

Church  attendance  was  practically  universal. 
All  the  people  whom  I  knew  went  to  church 
regularly  and  took  their  children  with  them. 
For  many  years  I  attended  five  religious  serv- 
ices every  Sunday  —  Y.  M.  C.  A.  at  ten 
o'clock,  Church  at  eleven.  Church  again  at 
half-past  one,  Sunday  School  at  three,  and 
Bible  Class  at  seven.  I  have  met  Scotchmen  on 
this  side  of  the  Atlantic  who  had  completely 
dropped  church  attendance,  and  their  excuse 
invariably  was  that  they  got  too  much  of  it  in 
their  youth.  But  I  have  no  such  recollection. 
We  had  a  very  able  preacher  and  teacher  in 
Rev.  Lewis  Davidson,  and  none  of  these  serv- 
ices failed  to  hold  my  intellectual  interest.  I 
cannot  join  with  Beecher  who  declared  that 
theSabbath  of  his  youth  was  his'^pet  aversion." 
I  have  always  been  very  susceptible  to  the 
moving  power  of  good  English  and  oratory 


Early  Life  2  3 

thrills  me  to  the  backbone.  To  this  day  I  re- 
member the  Impressions  of  certain  sermons  I 
heard  in  my  boyhood.  For  example,  Dr.  Whyte, 
the  great  preacher  of  Free  St.  George's,  Edin- 
burgh, once  preached  at  St.  Andrews  on  Jona- 
than who,  he  claimed,  was  the  noblest  charac- 
ter in  the  Old  Testament.  Describing  Jona- 
than's unselfishness  in  giving  place  to  his 
friend  David,  Dr.  Whyte,  in  his  rich  tones, 
finished  a  fine  paragraph  with  these  words: 
"Oh  Jonathan,  wert  thou  here,  methinks  it 
would  be  honor  for  these  selfish  lips  to  kiss  thy 
feet!"  I  was  only  about  twelve,  but  the  thrill 
that  reached  my  spinal  column  is  still  clear  in 
my  memory. 

The  religion  of  those  days  was  both  dogmat- 
ic and  evangelical.  Adam  was  created  in  a  sin- 
less state,  but  fell  by  eating  the  forbidden 
fruit  —  an  apple,  we  believed.  We  all  "sinned 
in  him  and  fell  with  him."  This  estranged  us* 
from  God,  made  us  "liable  to  death  itself,  and 
to  the  pains  of  hell  forever."  But  we  could  be 
reconciled  to  God  through  being  "converted" 
—  that  is,  through  repentance  for  sin,  and 
faith  in  Christ  as  our  Saviour.  This  salvation 
was  freely  offered  to  all,  but  there  was  another 
doctrine  rather  contradictory  to  this  free  offer, 
namely,  "Election."    The  Catechism  taught 


2  4  sketches  and  Speeches 

us  that  God  "out  of  his  mere  good  pleasure, 
from  all  eternity,  elected  some''  and  it  was  a 
very  serious  question  with  some  of  us,  even 
after  we  had  been  converted,  whether  we  were 
of  the  "elect."  This  "scheme  of  salvation"  was 
at  least  simple.  Child-like  faith  was  the  chief 
requisite  for  its  acceptance.  It  worked  in  many 
cases.  I  myself  knew  of  conversions  that 
changed  wicked,  foul-mouthed  men  into  quiet, 
prayerful  Christians  who  led  exemplary  lives 
to  the  end  of  their  days. 

But  what  has  become  of  these  old  doctrines  ? 
It  is  years  since  I  have  heard  a  minister  in  the 
pulpit  refer  to  the  fall  of  man,  original  sin,  the 
pains  of  hell  or  the  need  of  conversion  in  the 
old  sense  of  an  instantaneous  change.  What  we 
get  now  are  lectures  and  discussions  in  moral 
philosophy.  I  believe  that  the  example  and 
teaching  of  Jesus  Christ  applied  to  every  ex- 
perience of  life  is  the  best  preaching.  He  taught 
little  doctrine,  except  the  Fatherhood  of  God 
and  the  brotherhood  of  man,  and  there  is  scope 
enough  in  these  for  any  preacher.  We  may  be 
His  humble  followers  without  being  able  to 
subscribe  to  all  the  man-made  doctrines.  But  if 
we  are  His  followers  —  however  laggard  — 
we  should  ally  ourselves  with  His  church  and 
attend  it  regularly.  The  church,  with  all  its  im- 


Early  Life  2  5 

perfections,  stands  for  what  is  highest  and  best 
in  human  life.  In  large  measure  it  is  the  salt  of 
the  earth  saving  society  from  degeneration, 
decay  and  disintegration.  Christ  himself  set 
the  example  of  church  attendance  for  we  read 
"He  entered  as  was  his  custom  into  the  Syna- 
gogue on  the  Sabbath  day."  Morally  and  spirit- 
ually every  one  who  is  not  an  insufferable 
egotist  is  conscious  of  failure.  We  may  not  need 
five  services  every  Sunday,  but  we  certainly 
need  one.  Against  soul-shriveling  materialism, 
and  as  a  help  in  the  trials,  temptations  and 
tribulations  that  come  to  us  we  need  all  the 
inspiration  available. 

Dr.  Harry  Emerson  Fosdick  in  his  Farewell 
Sermon  said  recently:  "They  say  that  Brittany 
fisher-folk  have  a  legend  that  off  their  coast, 
deep-buried  in  the  seas  is  the  ideal  City  of 
Atlantis,  and  from  it  on  quiet  nights,  when  the 
winds  are  still,  if  a  man's  heart  is  right  he  can 
hear  the  pealing  of  the  bells.  Such  is  the  soul  of 
man  with  sacred  things  deep  sunken,  which 
life's  storm  makes  us  forget,  and  here,  often- 
times on  a  Sunday  morning,  we  have  been 
quieted  in  worship  until  we  heard  the  pealing 
of  the  bells." 

I,  for  one,  still  strive  to  hear,  and  need  to 
hear,  the  pealing  of  those  bells. 


CHAPTER    III 


STJ^A  T//K/NNESS 

"Where  village  statesmen  talked  with  looks  profound, 
And  news  much  older  than  their  ale  went  round." 

Goldsmith 


{Published  in  the  '^Scottish  American" 
November  24,  1886) 

^Ol'^^if^^^'^?^^^^^^  back  over  the  winding 
g?^;i^^^  pathway  of  my  past  life,  there 

Ljj^  is  to  me  no  better  remembered 


^p  scene  than  one  which  occurred 
W^i^MfM^  annually  during  the  years  of  my 
boyhood.  The  session  at  school 
is  ended,  and  the  eight  weeks  of  holidays  stretch 
out  before  my  young  imagination  as  an  almost 
endless  vista  of  fun  and  freedom.  Our  family 
are  preparing  for  their  summer  sojourn  at  our 
country  house,  a  few  miles  distant  from  our 
City  home.  The  trunks  containing  the  linen, 
cutlery,  cooking  utensils,  etc.,  required  to  sup- 

27 


2  8  sketches  and  Speeches 

plement  the  permanent  stock  at  the  little  coun- 
try house,  are  packed.  The  half-worn  clothes 
and  boots  belonging  to  us  boys  —  no  longer 
good  enough  for  city  wear  —  are  all  carefully 
stowed  away  by  our  thrifty  mother,  to  be  worn 
out  in  the  woods  or  on  the  harvest  fields.  My 
elder  brothers  are  carrying  boxes  and  bundles 
to  the  front  of  the  house,  under  the  direction  of 
our  mother,  who  prides  herself  in  making  this 
annual  "flitting"  without  breaking  a  bowl  or 
scratching  a  chair.  I,  the  youngest,  with  a  new 
whip,  built  specially  for  the  occasion,  have 
mounted  guard  on  our  movable  effects,  and 
am  defending  them  against  the  encroachments 
of  small  boys  and  dogs  who  like  to  poke  their 
inquisitive  noses  into  anything  unusual. 

But  now  I  suddenly  scramble  down  from  my 
fortress  and  rush  into  the  house  with  the  start- 
ling intelligence  that  the  cart  which  is  to  carry 
us  and  our  personal  property  is  in  sight  and 
coming  round  the  corner.  This  news,  I  find,  ex- 
cites no  one  but  mother,  who  is  perhaps  scarce- 
ly prepared  for  the  shock  and,  rushing  back  to 
my  duty  outside,  I  am  not  a  little  disappointed 
to  find  that  the  carrier  has  not  brought  my 
favorite  horse  —  old  Dick  —  who,  according  to 
my  firm  belief  and  frequent  declaration,  was 
able  to  draw  as  much  as  two  ordinary  horses. 


Strathkinness  29 

For  me  the  glory  has  departed  from  the  scene 
for  a  time  because  of  the  horse,  but  when  every- 
thing is  at  last  securely  loaded  on  the  cart; 
when  my  parents  and  brothers  have  mounted 
to  positions  where  they  can  hold  on  themselves, 
and  at  the  same  time  prevent  some  article 
from  falling  off;  when,  after  handing  up  my 
pet  cat,  I  am  lifted  first  on  to  the  horse's  back 
and  from  thence  pulled  up  beside  the  driver; 
when,  above  all,  I  am  given  the  lines  and  al- 
lowed to  drive,  the  cup  of  my  earthly  happiness 
is  full.  Ah!  those  happy  days  of  our  boyhood! 
Can  any  scenes  in  after-life  give  us  such  un- 
alloyed joy? 

As  we  slowly  move  along  the  country  road, 
my  father  has  a  quiet  chat  with  the  carter 
about  the  various  crops  in  the  fields;  my  moth- 
er's mind  is  set  chiefly  upon  getting  to  our  des- 
tination without  anything  falling  off  on  the 
way,  and  she  says  little,  but  keeps  a  vigilant 
eye  on  her  household  property;  my  brothers 
plan  holiday  excursions,  or  recount  the  ex- 
ploits of  former  years,  while  I  am  perfectly 
happy  with  the  present  responsibility  of  driv- 
ing the  horse,  under  the  guidance  of  the  carter. 
I  said  perfectly  happy,  but  we  are  never  so  in 
this  world.  In  the  present  instance  my  bliss  is 
slightly  curtailed  by  my  not  being  allowed  to 


3  o  Sketches  and  Speeches 

use  my  new  whip  as  freely  as  I  would  wish  on 
the  horse's  flanks.  This  again  leads  me  to  re- 
gret the  absence  of  my  old  friend  "Dick,"  who 
was  one  of  those  patient,  plodding  fellows  who 
take  their  time  in  spite  of  all  the  whips  in 
creation,  and  who  might,  therefore,  be  whipped 
as  often  as  I  liked  without  danger  to  the  fur- 
niture. 

Arrived  at  the  village  —  Strathkinness  by 
name  —  our  house  is  easily  distinguished  by 
its  being  more  than  one  story  high  (a  butt  and 
a  ben  being  the  common  style)  —  a  fact  of 
which  I  am  not  a  little  proud.  The  shutters  are 
soon  drawn  back  and  the  windows  opened. 
Then  follows  the  unloading  of  our  stuff,  to  the 
view  of  the  gaping  village  urchins  who  have 
collected  at  a  little  distance  in  silent  awe.  To 
their  minds  we  city  folks  are  quite  grand  —  a 
fact  I  am  all  conscious  of,  as  I  ostentatiously 
hold  the  horse's  head,  and  view  their  ragged 
clothes  and  bare  feet  from  the  altitude  of  a 
tweed  suit,  a  straw  hat,  and  a  pair  of  boots. 
This  feeling  of  superiority  is  enhanced  when  a 
neighbor's  boy  comes  along  upon  whose  back  I 
recognize  one  of  my  own  left-off  coats  of  the 
previous  summer.  I  cannot  recall  such  vain 
thoughts  ever  passing  through  my  mind  in  the 
City  —  a  fact  which  shows  me  that  a  man's 


Strathkinness  3 1 


opinion  of  himself,  and  people's  regard  for  him 
depend  upon  the  size  of  the  place  wherein  he 
lives.  It  is  far  better  to  be  a  big  man  in  a  small 
place  than  a  small  man  in  a  big  place  —  at 
least  so  I  felt  as  I  stood,  amid  the  circum- 
stances described,  in  that  peaceful  Scotch  vil- 
lage of  which  I  am  about  to  write. 

Strathkinness  had  little  of  the  picturesque 
within  its  bounds,  it  was  not  the  "loveliest 
village  of  the  plain,"  but  the  beauty  of  the  sur- 
rounding country,  with  its  wooded  hills  and  cul- 
tivated slopes,  its  peaceful  valleys,  and  rippling 
burns,  made  it  a  pleasant  spot  during  the  sum- 
mer months.  There  were  probably  500  inhabit- 
ants whose  main  support  was  drawn  from  some 
fine  sandstone  quarries,  owned  and  worked 
by  the  one  man  in  the  place  who  was  mak- 
ing money.  Strathkinness  had  two  churches, 
the  Free  and  the  Auld  Kirk,  and  although  it 
would  be  difficult  for  a  stranQ;er  to  tell  wherein 
lay  their  difference  in  doctrine  or  worship,  still 
there  was  plenty  of  scope  for  religious  secta- 
rian feeling,  for  my  folks  were  Free,  and  I 
remember  I  had  little  hope  for  the  eternal  wel- 
fare of  the  worshippers  who  gathered  round 
the  door  of  the  Auld  Kirk  on  Sunday,  waiting 
for  the  last  stroke  of  the  bell  before  they  slowly 
stepped  inside.  One  might  suppose  that  the 


3  2  sketches  and  Speeches 

ministers  of  these  slightly  divided  churches 
would  be  warm  friends,  drawn  together  by  pro- 
fessional feelings,  kindred  aims,  and  mutual 
responsibilities  for  the  spiritual  welfare  of  the 
village.  But  that  was  not  the  way  the  Strath- 
kinness  divines  exemplified  their  Christianity. 
I  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  ill  feeling 
existed  between  them,  but  I  never  saw  them 
together  in  public  or  private. 

The  Auld  Kirk  minister  was  a  genial,  good- 
looking,  middle-aged  man,  easy-going  and, 
therefore,  popular.  He  seemed  quite  contented, 
but  although  he  had  lived  long  among  the  hum- 
ble villagers  hislife  was  not  without  its  romance, 
for  it  was  said  that  he  had  fallen  in  love  with 
his  young  wife  when  she  was  an  infant  in  her 
cradle,  and  he  a  student  boarding  at  her 
mother's  house;  that  he  had  waited  for  her, 
and  that  his  patient  fidelity  had  been  fully 
rewarded.  The  Free  minister,  on  the  other 
hand,  was  a  plain-looking,  short-sighted,  spec- 
tacled scholar,  who  was  rarely  seen  during  the 
week  except  on  the  road  to  or  from  the  City 
with  library  books  under  his  arm.  He  was  a 
good  man,  whose  heart  was  in  the  right  place, 
but  he  was  too  fond  of  the  seclusion  of  his 
study  ever  to  be  a  successful  pastor.  Occasion- 
ally he  would  astonish  his  sleepy  hearers  with 


Strathkinness  3  3 

a  really  powerful  discourse,  but  as  a  rule  his 
sermons  were  rather  monotonous.  His  favor- 
ite subjects  were  St.  Paul,  whose  virtues  he  was 
never  tired  of  extolling,  and  the  devil,  whose 
devices  he  was  never  done  denouncing.  He 
preached  extempore,  and  so  fond  was  he  of  his 
two  favorites  that  when  he  got  the  length  of 
naming  either  of  them  he  need  try  to  get  no 
further  that  day  for  it  was  then  hard  for  him  to 
stop.  I  recollect  that  he  had  a  most  uncom- 
fortable way  of  speaking  of  Satan,  as  if  he  were 
ever  at  our  elbow,  which  rather  frightened  my 
youthful  fancy.  What  the  good  man  might 
have  accomplished  with  his  scholarly  abilities 
in  a  better  field,  I  cannot  say,  but  there  he  was, 
with  a  small  salary,  a  large  wife,  and  a  numer- 
ous family,  firmly  planted  in  lonely  Strath- 
kinness, as  dry  as  any  dead  oak  in  the  place, 
and  as  unlikely  to  be  transplanted. 

Besides  its  two  churches  Strathkinness  pos- 
sessed two  public  houses,  and  two  schools,  so 
that  the  in  teres  ts  of  rum,  religion  and  the  "  three 
R's"  were  about  equally  represented  in  the 
little  community. 

Like  all  Scotch  villages,  it  had  its  characters. 
Its  oldest  inhabitant  —  a  wrinkled  old  woman, 
nearly  a  centenarian  —  lived  alone,  and  how 
she  kept  the  breath  of  life  in  her  was  a  mystery. 


3  4  Sketches  and  Speeches 

Its  never-failing  idiot  was  a  huge  red-haired 
fellow,  whose  mind  had  never  got  past  the 
stage  of  infancy.  Its  "crier"  was  a  wheezy  old 
chap,  who  could  make  his  bell  better  heard, 
and  as  well  understood,  as  his  voice.  Its  repre- 
sentative of  natural  genius  was  a  common 
quarryman,  but  at  once  a  handsome  man,  a 
skilled  botanist,  and  a  minor  poet  after  the  or- 
der of  Burns  himself.  Its  most  famous  charac- 
ter, however,  was  its  miser,  whom  I  shall  des- 
ignate Miss  Hardscrew. 

Miss  Flardscrew's  house  was  one  of  the  best 
in  the  village.  It  contained  perhaps  ten  rooms, 
all  well  furnished  —  at  least  so  it  was  said  — 
but  no  one  ever  saw  their  interior,  for  their 
shutters  were  always  securely  fastened,  and 
allowed  not  a  ray  of  sunlight  to  enter  and  fade 
the  carpets.  They  were  only  opened  when  Miss 
Flardscrew  paid  a  visit  to  them  to  see  that 
nothing  had  been  stolen.  Every  door  in  the 
house  was  securely  fastened  by  strong  locks 
and  bolts,  the  keys  of  which  hung  at  the  miser's 
girdle.  She,  herself,  occupied  the  kitchen.  This 
cheerless  apartment,  with  its  cold  stone  floor, 
was  both  parlor  and  bedroom  to  the  miserable 
old  creature,  who  had  hundreds  of  pounds  in 
the  bank.  In  front  of  the  house  was  an  orchard 
surrounded  by  a  high  stone  wall,  with  broken 


Strathkinness  3  5 

glass  on  the  top  as  a  protection  against  the 
boys.  Through  the  bars  of  the  strong  iron 
gate  you  might  see  her  exchanging  goose- 
berries for  the  school  children's  half-pennies, 
which  were  intended  by  their  parents  to  be 
spent  on  a  more  solid  lunch.  As  she  stands 
with  one  hand  holding  the  small  measure 
barely  full  of  gooseberries,  which  she  will  not 
empty  into  the  purchaser's  pocket  until  her 
other  hand  closes  over  his  half-penny,  she  is 
not  an  attractive  specimen  of  her  kind.  Her 
race  of  life  is  well  nigh  run,  and  she  cannot 
long  hold  on  to  the  half-pennies.  Her  dress  is 
threadbare  and  shabby.  Her  figure  is  thin  and 
shriveled.  Her  face,  wi'th  its  small  sharp  eyes, 
its  dry,  twitching  lips,  and  its  innumerable 
wrinkles,  is  hard  and  ugly.  I  have  heard  that 
she  was  a  belle  in  her  youth,  but  not  one  trace 
of  feminine  grace  or  womanly  tenderness  re- 
mains. All  that  was  ever  good  in  her  has  been 
crushed  out  by  the  absorbing  love  of  money, 
and  as  she  stands  before  us  now  she  has  not  a 
spark  of  affection  for  any  living  thing  —  not 
even  a  cat  —  and  no  living  thing  cares  for  her. 
This  genial  creature,  I  regret  to  say,  was  a 
distant  relative  of  mine,  a  fact  which  she  rec- 
ognized by  a  biennial  call  upon  my  mother, 
accompanied  by  a  gift  of  about  a  dozen  apples, 


3  6  Sketches  and  Speeches 

which  were  always  windfalls  and  which  she 
could  not  sell,  nor  we  eat.  Taking  advantage  of 
this  relationship  I  used  to  venture  within  the 
iron  gate  occasionally  at  gooseberry  time,  and 
after  a  while  I  was  allowed  to  help  her  to  pull  the 
gooseberries,  and  this  gave  me  a  disinterested 
object  for  many  subsequent  visits.  While  thus 
engaged  I  was  informed  that  I  might  eat  the 
berries  which  had  fallen  to  the  ground,  and 
which  my  kindly  relative  assured  me  were  the 
best  of  all ;  but  I  was  generally  to  be  found  with 
a  good  thick  bush  between  me  and  the  owner 
thereof,  and  I  rejoice  yet  to  think  that  she 
parted  with  the  choicest  of  the  fruit  without 
money  and  without  price. 

In  later  years  the  old  lady  began  to  get  too 
feeble  to  attend  to  her  own  wants,  and  after 
some  diplomacy  and  negotiation  a  bargain  was 
arranged  with  one  of  her  nieces  whereby  the 
niece  agreed  to  live  with  and  nurse  her  aunt 
in  consideration  of  sundry  benefits  to  be  de- 
rived from  the  death  of  her  patient.  This  ne- 
cessitated Miss  Hardscrew's  sending  for  her 
lawyer  to  make  her  will.  The  lawyer  was  a  City 
gentleman,  and  many  a  drive  to  Strathkinness 
did  he  have  before  that  will  was  executed,  for 
Miss  Hardscrew,  besides  being  greatly  exer- 
cised over  the  division  of  her  property,  shared 


Strathkinness  3  7 

a  very  common  feeling  among  the  Scotch, 
namely,  that  signing  a  will  and  sending  for  the 
undertaker  were  about  the  same  thing.  The 
will,  however,  was  executed  at  last,  and  the 
niece  sat  down  to  wait  and  long  for  it  to  be 
administered.  She  was  an  honest,  decent 
woman,  and  faithful  to  her  aunt,  but  it  was 
hardly  to  be  expected  that  she  would  pray 
that  her  life  might  be  long  spared.  But  al- 
though Miss  Hardscrew  took  to  her  bed,  many 
a  year  passed  and  still  the  niece  waited. 

I  remember  visiting  the  dismal  mansion  with 
my  father  and  mother,  after  I  had  grown  to  be 
a  young  man.  Passing  through  a  spacious  hall, 
where  a  man's  hat  was  conspicuously  displayed 
as  a  deceptive  intimation  to  tramps  that  there 
was  a  man  in  the  house,  we  entered  the  kit- 
chen, and  found  Miss  Hardscrew  sitting  up  in 
bed.  Her  body  was  wasted  but  her  mind  was 
clear,  and  as  much  exercised  about  worldly 
things  as  ever.  Seeing  this,  my  mother  con- 
ceived it  to  be  her  duty  to  speak  religiously  to 
her. 

"Strathkinness  is  the  warst  hole  onybody 
ever  put  their  foot  in"  Miss  Hardscrew  ex- 
claimed; "they  would  rob  me  o'a  I  hae  if  they 
daured.  \Yould  ye  believe  it,  I  had  twa  pair  o' 
blankets  taen  oot  o'  my  very  hoose,  an'  apples 


3  8  Sketches  and  Speeches 

an'  berries  mair  than  I  can  tell.  Od,  they'll 
suffer  for't  yet  —  if  no  in  this  warl,  they  wuU  i' 
the  neist." 

"We  are  all  sinners,  deserving  nothing  but 
punishment  from  the  Righteous  Judge,  "began 
my  mother,  "but  if  we  confess  our  sins  He  is — " 

"Ou  aye!  I  ken  that  weel  enough,  but  ye 
needna'  preach  to  me,  I  niver  wranged  a  livin' 
bein',  an'  I've  been  an  honest  an'  respectable 
woman;  deny  it  wha  may!" 

"We  are  all  sinners  before  God,  no  matter" 
—  again  interposed  my  mother,  but  Miss 
Hardscrew  was  deaf  to  good  advice,  and  seeing 
it  was  hopeless  mother  rose  to  depart. 

"Hoo  do  ye  think  she  looks?"  anxiously 
whispered  the  niece  at  the  door,  "she  surely 
canna  last  muckle  langer?" 

"Don't  deceive  yourself,  Jean,"  said  my 
father  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye,  "she  will  last 
ten  years  to  come  yet,  and  see  you  out,"  and 
with  that  comforting  assurance  we  left.  I  never 
saw  her  again,  but  I  will  not  soon  forget  the 
impression  her  character  and  condition  made 
on  me. 

The  inhabitants  of  the  Scotch  village  were 
hard-working,  honest  folks.  Their  religion,  as 
a  rule,  was  confined  to  a  stolid  but  regular 
church  attendance,  although  there  were  doubt- 


Strathkinneff  39 

less  a  few  to  whom  religion  meant  more.  The 
simple  trust  of  two  ladies  who  had  barely 
enough  to  support  them  with  their  needles, 
and  who  had  little  to  look  forward  to  in  old  age, 
made  a  lasting  impression  on  my  mind.  The 
moral  tone  of  the  place  was  very  lax,  chiefly 
because  of  the  lack  of  a  salutary  public  opin- 
ion. In  this  respect  it  was  quite  the  opposite 
of  the  neighboring  City  of  St.  Andrews  where 
moral  lapses  were  as  severely  condemned  as 
they  were  carelessly  tolerated  inStrathkinness. 
Why  this  was  so  I  do  not  know. 

I  spent  many  happy  summer  days  in  Strath- 
kinness,  and  if  ever  it  is  my  good  fortune  to  see 
again  the  land  of  my  birth,  there  is  no  spot  in 
"bonnie  Scotland"  that  I  shall  visit  with  more 
pleasure,  for  no  spot  will  awaken  more  varied 
and  happy  memories. 


CHAPTER    IV 


goLF 


'Health  is  the  vital  principle  of  bliss, 
And  exercise,  of  health." 

Thomson 


Published  in  ''Golf  Illustrated''  October^  1924 

oD'^^if^^^^^^^  ^"  ^^*  ^^drews  —  the  an- 
^^^^^^^  cient  capital  of  the  golfing 
Sc  world  —  my  golf  recollections 
^  naturally  start  there.  They 
^@^ffl  begin  with  a  wee  Scotch  laddie 
of  five,  bearing  a  dim  but  un- 
mistakable likeness  to  myself,  playing  on 
the  edge  of  the  historic  links  with  a  small 
club  specially  made  for  him.  About  that 
time  gutta-percha  balls  had  supplanted  the 
old  feather-filled,  leather-covered  kind,  but  I 
can  recall  seeing  specimens  of  the  latter  lying 
about.  In  those  far-off  days  old  Tom  Morris  — 
the  Nestor  of  thegame — was  the  leading  profes- 
sional. But,  of  course,  he  had  rivals,  of  whom 


B 


4  2  sketches  and  Speeches 

Willie  Park,  of  Musselborough,  was  the  chief. 
The  professional  match  of  those  days  was 
usually  arranged  for  three  to  five  days'  play 
over  several  courses.  It  was  a  continuous  affair, 
beginning  at  the  home  of  one  player,  covering 
several  neutral  courses,  and  finishing  at  the 
home  of  the  other  player.  If  the  "stakes"  for 
such  a  match  were  as  high  as  one  hundred 
pounds  sterling  they  seemed  large  to  us ! 

On  one  occasion  a  long  drawn-out  match  of 
this  sort  between  Tom  Morris  and  Willie  Park, 
having  started  at  Musselborough,  was  being 
finished  at  St.  Andrews.  After  various  ups  and 
downs  it  reached  the  thirty-sixth  hole  at  St. 
Andrews  with  the  players  "all  even."  Playing 
the  last  hole  Tom  reached  the  edge  of  the  green 
in  two,  but  still  thirty  or  forty  feet  from  the 
hole.  His  opponent  was  in  the  grassy  hollow 
short  of  the  green  in  two,  and  electrified  the 
crowd  by  holing  his  approach  shot.  Old  Tom 
only  smiled  —  nothing  in  the  game  ever  made 
him  swear!  Taking  out  his  old  wooden  putter, 
he  calmly  studied  his  putt,  and  while  the  crowd 
held  its  breath,  he  played  and  holed  it!  Those 
were  not  the  days  of  extra  holes.  The  match 
was  halved,  and  Tom's  St.  Andrews  admirers 
carried  him  off  the  green  on  their  shoulders  in 
triumph. 


Golf  43 

Passing  a  decade,  I  see  the  wee  laddie  —  now 
bearing  a  much  clearer  resemblance  and  more 
definite  relation  to  myself —  a  lad  of  fiften  at 
work  in  a  bank  and  very  proud  of  it.  He  still 
played  golf,  but  not  as  often  as  he  should  have 
done.  Like  many  another,  he  failed  to  appre- 
ciate his  advantages  or  embrace  his  opportuni- 
ties. Consequently  he  missed  the  best  years 
and  left  Scotland  permanently  at  eighteen 
without  having  become  a  first-class  player. 

At  that  time,  young  Tom  Morris  was  su- 
preme. I  think  he  won  the  championship  three 
consecutive  years  before  he  was  twenty.  He 
passed  away  at  twenty-three.  How  would  he 
compare  with  the  top-notchers  of  to-day? 
Comparison  is  difficult  and  futile.  The  clubs, 
the  balls  and  the  courses  have  all  been  greatly 
improved  since  then.  All  I  can  say  is  that  he 
was  easily  the  best  player  of  his  day.  Those  of 
us  who  knew  him  can  never  forget  his  brilliant, 
dashing  style  as  a  player,  nor  his  captivating 
personality  as  a  man.  He  was  king  of  his  golfing 
world  —  but  it  was  a  small  world.  Even  Eng- 
land did  not  belong  to  it  at  that  time,  although 
some  old  gentlemen  played  at  Blackheath,  near 
London.  Some  clubs  were  indeed  shipped  from 
St.  Andrews  to  foreign  parts,  where  a  few 
Scotchmen    had    found   themselves  and   had 


44  Sketches  and  Speeches 

started  the  grand  old  game  in  a  modest  way. 
But,  practically  speaking,  the  golfing  world 
was  confined  to  Scotland. 

Passing  another  decade,  I  find  myself  in 
Minneapolis  with  a  few  clubs  and  balls  brought 
with  me  on  my  return  from  my  first  visit  home. 
Explaining  their  use  to  my  friend,  C.  T.  Jaf- 
fray  (then  a  banker  —  now  a  railroad  president) 
we  went  several  times  to  a  farm  where  there 
was  some  grazing  land,  selected  certain  trees 
as  "holes,"  and  banged  the  balls  about,  thus 
playing  (I  believe)  the  first  golf  in  Minnesota. 
I  am  proud  of  having  initiated  Mr.  Jaffrey  into 
the  game,  for  he  later  became,  and  still  is,  one 
of  the  best  players  in  that  section. 

A  few  years  later  —  1896  —  I  found  myself 
in  Chicago  (still  working  in  a  bank  and  still 
proud  of  it),  where  two  golf  clubs  had  recently 
been  organized.  Charlie  Macdonald  (to  whom 
American  golf  owes  as  much  as  to  any  other 
single  man)  J.  H.  Whigham,  the  late  Wm.  R. 
Stirling,  my  brother,  James  B.,  and  other 
Scots  had  inspired  some  Americans  to  join 
them,  and  had  launched  the  Chicago  Golf 
Club,  first  at  Belmont,  and  later  at  Wheaton, 
west  of  Chicago,  where  it  still  flourishes.  But 
this  location  was  not  convenient  for  Chicago- 
ans  whose  summer  homes  were  on  the  north 


Golf  45 

shore  of  the  Lake,  therefore  Onwentsia  was 
started  at  Lake  Forest.  I  joined,  and  the  de- 
lightful thrill  I  experienced  to  find  the  game  of 
my  youth  established  in  Chicago  and  ready  to 
my  hand  has  remained  with  me  in  ever-increas- 
ing force.  I  often  wonder  whether  I  could  have 
endured  life  in  Chicago  all  these  years  without 
it. 

We  who  had  learned  the  game  in  Scotland 
had  a  brief  period  of  fame  and  glory  before  the 
Americans  caught  on,  and  some  of  us  won 
honors  and  reputations  which  have  been  hard 
to  live  up  to  since.  But  it  was  fun  while  it  last- 
ed. For  example,  I  remember  visiting  a  city  in 
the  early  days  where  golf  had  been  played  for 
about  a  year.  Strolling  up  to  the  shanty  of  a 
clubhouse,  I  asked  if  I  might  play.  Permission 
was  at  once  granted  and  I  then  inquired  if 
there  was  anyone  about  who  would  join  me  in 
a  game.  This  was  met  with  the  question  as  to 
whether  I  knew  the  game,  because,  said  the 
attendant,  "Our  best  player  is  here  looking  for 
a  game,  but  he  does  not  like  to  play  with  begin- 
ners." I  replied  that  I  knew  something  of  it, 
and  the  best  player  was  at  once  produced  —  a 
fine-looking  young  lawyer.  We  played,  and 
doing  my  usual  "low-eighty"  against  his 
hundred  and  twenty,  I  won  every  hole!  My 


46  sketches  and  Speeches 

opponent  was  one  of  the  right  sort,  however, 
and  next  day  he  played  me  again  in  the  pres- 
ence of  quite  a  crowd  which  he  had  collected 
to  see  the  ''wonderful  player!"  He  gave  a  din- 
ner for  me  that  evening.  He  is  now  a  better 
player  than  I,  and  we  are  still  friends. 

But  other  experiences  soon  followed.  Going 
a  little  later  to  La  Crosse,  Wis.,  to  play  with 
my  old  banker-friend,  George  W.  Burton,  he 
introduced  into  our  game  a  student  lad  named 
Hixon,  from  whom  I  narrowly  escaped  defeat. 
A  few  months  later  young  Hixon  came  into 
my  office,  and  asked  me  if  I  could  arrange 
a  game  for  him  with  our  professional  at  On- 
wentsia,  explaining  that  he  wished  to  see  a 
"pro"  play.  I  did,  and  my  young  friend  played 
Onwentsia  in  seventy-six  and  beat  the  pro- 
fessional! Thus  early  did  we  old-timers  learn 
to  fear  the  boys! 

Among  all  my  recollections  of  early  Ameri- 
can golf  there  is  only  one  of  an  unpleasant  na- 
ture. Two  men,  always  playing  together  and 
keeping  each  other's  scores,  had  won  several 
cups.  They  were  beginners  and  suspicion  arose 
as  to  thecorrectness  of  the  scores  they  returned, 
and  when  they  entered  for  a  tournament  at 
Onwentsia,  it  was  arranged  that  two  of  our 
best  players  should  play  behind  them  and  keep 


Golf  47 

their  scores.  The  result  was  that  the  two 
worthies  promptly  and  permanently  disap- 
peared thereafter  from  golf  competitions!  Ver- 
ily, human  nature  is  a  queer  thing!  Fancy  tak- 
ing a  cup  home,  receiving  the  congratulations 
of  family  and  friends,  and  knowing  all  the 
while  that  it  was  stolen !  One  would  think  that 
such  a  cup  on  the  mantel  would  be  a  constant 
occasion  for  blushing  confusion  instead  of 
pleasurable  pride!  But  to  the  honor  of  Ameri- 
can sport  be  it  said  that  such  cases  have  been 
exceedingly  rare. 

In  all  recollections  there  must  be  an  element 
of  sadness  as  we  remember  those  with  whom 
we  worked  or  played,  and  who  are  no  longer 
with  us.  For  myself  I  find  that  it  is  as  golfers 
that  I  recall  them,  no  matter  how  prominent 
in  other  directions  they  may  have  been.  For 
example,  no  man  who  has  passed  from  Chicago 
for  some,fifteen  years  is  more  frequently  recalled 
by  his  friends  than  the  late  John  H.  Hamline. 
He  was  a  fine  man,  an  able  lawyer,  a  public- 
spirited  citizen  whose  professional  and^ro  bono 
publico  achievements  are  well  remembered. 
But  it  is  as  a  golfer  that  I  love  best  to  think  of 
him.  He  had  a  most  deliberate  style,  but  such 
a  true  love  for  the  game  and  so  earnest  a  con- 
centration thereon,  that  it  was  a  delight  to  play 


4  8  Sketches  and  Speeches 

with  him.  He  had  also  a  keen  sense  of  humor, 
many  instances  of  which  I  could  relate.  Perhaps 
one  will  suffice,  as  it  is  at  my  own  expense.  I 
had  offered  two  sets  of  golf  clubs  as  prizes  for 
a  mixed  foursome  competition,  and  it  was  usual 
at  Onwentsia  in  such  games  for  the  women  to 
ask  the  men  to  play  with  them.  On  the  day  of 
the  event  I  was  asked  by  a  woman  to  be  her 
partner,  but  declined  because  I  was  giving  the 
prizes.  "Oh,  come  on,"  said  she,  "we  won't 
win,  anyway."  So  I  played,  and  as  luck  would 
have  it,  we  did  win.  My  partner  took  her  prize 
but  I,  of  course,  allowed  the  man's  prize  to  be 
competed  for  again.  In  the  newspaper,  how- 
ever, appeared  a  squib  under  the  heading — 
"Wins  His  Own  Prize,"  which,  of  course,  did 
not  contain  all  the  facts.  Next  day  John 
Hamline  walked  into  my  office  and  engaged 
me  in  conversation  as  to  the  great  depth  of 
meaning  in  some  Scotch  words.  Explaining 
that  he  was  studying  Burns  he  asked  me  the 
full  meaning  of  the  word  "pawky,"  spelling  it 
out  most  carefully.  I  told  him  that  "pawky" 
meant  "canny,  shrewd,  a  little  over-reaching, 
sure  to  get  the  best  of  it  in  any  possible  way." 
"Thank  you,  D.  R.,"  replied  John,  without  a 
glint  of  a  smile.  "I  thought  a  man  who  would 
win  his  own  prize  could  explain  the  meaning  of 


Golf  Ar^ 

'pawky/  "  and  he  marched  away  without  an- 
other word. 

Golf's  conquest  of  America  was  as  rapid  as  it 
now  bids  fair  to  be  complete.  But  it  had  some 
old  prejudices  to  overcome.  When  I  had  com- 
peted in  a  few  tournaments  in  Chicago  the 
chief  stockholder  of  my  bank  proposed  to  sell 
his  stock  on  the  ground  that  I  could  not  be  "a 
sport  and  a  banker  at  the  same  time."  But  he 
later  repented,  kept  his  stock  (greatly  to  his 
financial  advantage),  was  conquered  by  the 
game  and  enjoyed  many  a  round  before  he 
passed  away.  Today  anyone  who  objected  to 
golf  in  moderation  as  recreation  for  the  "tired 
business  man"  would  be  generally  laughed  at. 
In  the  past  three  decades  the  Royal  and  An- 
cient game  has  certainly  won  its  way!  I  look 
back  to  the  time  when  the  one  course  at  St. 
Andrews  was  never  crowded.  Now  there  are 
four  courses,  and  in  summer  they  are  constant- 
ly crowded. 

I  look  around  in  Chicago  and  find  over  a 
hundred  courses  —  some  as  fine  as  any  in  the 
world.  Millions  of  dollars  have  been  invested  in 
golf  clubs  all  over  the  country,  and  American 
life  has  been  transformed  and  enriched  there- 
by. Some  American-born  players  are  the  equal 
of  any  in  the  world.  A  constant  evolution  in 


5  o  Sketches  and  Speeches 

clubs,  balls  and  courses  is  going  on  with  the 
aid  of  American  inventive  genius,  and  about 
ten  strokes  have  been  cut  from  the  best  scores 
thereby.  My  old  club,  Onwentsia,  now  numbers 
among  its  members  such  champions  as  Robert 
Gardner  and  Miss  Edith  Cummings,  and  can 
put  a  team  of  players  in  the  field  which  could, 
as  I  believe,  hold  its  own  with  a  team  from  any 
club  in  the  world.  But  while  I  love  Onwentsia 
of  which  I  am  proud  to  have  been  champion 
more  than  once  (before  the  boys  came  along), 
I  do  most  of  my  playing  on  Old  Elm  at  Fort 
Sheridan.  This  is  a  course  on  which  no  woman 
has  ever  played,  and  it  admirably  suits  the 
limited  number  of  men  of  advancing  years  who 
own  it.  The  ground  is  rolling  and  the  holes 
have  picturesque  variety  and  individual  charm. 
Under  the  able  administration  of  President  E. 
F.  Carry  and  Chairman  of  the  Green  Commit- 
tee W.  A.  Alexander,  the  course  is  always  in 
perfect  condition.  There  is  never  congestion, 
nor  any  waiting,  and  the  members  get  terribly 
spoiled  for  the  ordinary  links,  with  women  and 
children  cumbering  the  ground !  I  suppose  we 
are  a  selfish  lot  at  Old  Elm,  but  if  there  is  any- 
thing this  side  of  paradise  nearer  to  human 
happiness  than  four  congenial  golf-afiinities  all 
playing  well  on  a  June  day  on  that  course,  I 


Go/f  51 

know  not  what  it  is !  Gentle  breezes  from  Lake 
Michigan  temper  the  atmosphere;  the  cares  of 
business  and  the  worries  of  life ''fold  their  tents 
like  the  Arabs  and  as  silently  steal  away"; 
forgotten  the  rheumatic  aches  and  other  ills 
that  prey  on  increasing  years;  the  mind  puri- 
fied of  all  sordid  or  material  considerations 
generates  a  spirit  of  youthful  camaraderie; 
jovial  badinage  and  mock  sympathy  for  oppo- 
nents' misfortunes  form  the  conversation;  the 
happy  hours  speed  away  on  the  spirit-wings  of 
mutual  understanding  and  joyous  friendship. 
The  grand  old  Scotch  game,  so  circum- 
scribed in  my  youth,  has,  in  my  day,  conquered 
America.  Who  shall  undertake  to  measure  its 
contribution  to  the  health  and  happiness  of  our 
people,  or  to  estimate  the  benign  influence  of 
the  friendships  local,  national  and  inter- 
national, which  it  has  created  and  cemented? 


UBRARY  U.  or  I.  linSANA  CJL^PJIIGIJ 


CHAPTER    V 


BANKING   EXPEDIENCE 

IN 

SCOTLAND  AND   CANADA 

"To  business  that  we  love  we  rise  betime 
And  go  to't  with  delight." 

Shakespeare 

i^^ii^0^]^^^ ">  ^^  ^  believe,  one  of  the 
^gg^i^g^g^  greatest  blessings  of  this  life  is  to 
T  S®?  have  a  congenial  occupation,  I 
i.  WS.  was  singularly  fortunate  when  I 
chose  Banking  as  a  profession. 
From  boyhood  there  has  existed 
for  me  a  kind  of  romantic  glamour  over  that 
business.  After  almost  half  a  century  in  it  I  can 
say  that  I  have  never  had  an  uninteresting  or 
irksome  day  inside  a  Bank.  I  have  had  many 
anxious,  overworked  and  worrying  days,  but 
never  one  when  I  watched  the  clock  and  longed 
for  the  day  to  pass.  I  left  the  business  once  for 

S2> 


5  4  Sketches  and  Speeches 

a  few  months,  and  all  the  days  of  that  period 
were  long,  dreary  and  uninteresting.  I  was  as 
much  out  of  my  element  as  a  fish  out  of  water, 
and  like  the  fish  I  think  I  should  have  died  had 
I  not  returned  to  my  chosen  calling.  This  pre- 
dilection for  Banking  probably  came  from  the 
fact  that  my  most  admired  uncle  was  a  suc- 
cessful Scotch  Banker  in  England,  and  from 
the  further  fact  that  my  older  brother,  Jim, 
was  meeting  with  success  in  that  calling.  As  a 
small  boy  I  had  looked  up  to  his  position  in  a 
Bank  as  one  greatly  to  be  desired  and  distinct- 
ly preferable  to  any  other  opening  to  be  had  in 
old  St.  Andrews.  Afterward,  when  Jim  had 
gone  to  America,  his  letters  home  indicating 
his  advancing  career  established  in  my  mind 
an  ardent  desire  to  follow  in  his  steps.  There- 
fore when  the  time  came  for  my  Sunday- 
School  teacher  —  John  Nicholson  —  to  give 
me  the  preference  over  other  applicants  and 
take  me  into  the  Clydesdale  Bank,  of  which 
he  was  the  Agent  at  St.  Andrews,  I  was  a 
very  happy  lad.  Impatiently  I  counted  the 
days  which  intervened  before  my  acutal  en- 
trance like  a  child  looking  forward  to  Christ- 
mas. I  was  fifteen  and  a  half  years  old  and  was 
in  the  highest  classes  at  Madras  College.  My 
father  would  have  had  me  go  to  the  Univer- 


Banking  in  Scotland  and  Canada   5  5 

sity,  and  my  English  teacher,  Dr.  Armstrong, 
also  was  flattering  enough  to  urge  me  to  do  so, 
and  to  adopt  literature  as  my  life  work,  but  I 
have  never  regretted  my  choice  of  Banking.  It 
is  futile,  but  interesting,  to  speculate  on  the 
different  life  the  other  choice  would  have 
meant.  There  might  have  been  the  worries  and 
pursuits  of  a  parson,  or  the  London  garret,  the 
struggle  and  possibly  the  final  fame,  or  more 
probably  the  flat  failure  of  a  writer.  In  any 
case,  I  am  sure,  I  have  had  a  happier  life  in 
Banking,  and  that  is  something. 

My  first  day  in  a  Bank  stands  out  clearly  in 
memory  over  a  lapse  of  nearly  half  a  century. 
I  see  the  high  mahogany  desk  and  long-legged 
stool  that  I  took  proud  possession  of — the 
same  desk  and  stool  doubtless  which  some 
other  Scotch  lad  occupies  today  for  things  do 
not  change  in  St.  Andrews.  The  branches  of 
Scottish  banks  sent  weekly,  monthly  and 
quarterly  returns  to  Head  Office,  which  were 
practically  transcriptions  of  the  branch's  books. 
I  have  often  wondered  since  what  on  earth  the 
Head  Office  did  with  some  of  them.  The  first 
task  set  me  by  the  accountant,  Mr.  Geo. 
Smith,  was  to  sum  up  in  pencil  the  quarterly 
return  of  the  Individual  Ledger.  This  involved 
the  adding  of  some  fifty  or  sixty  columns  of 


5  6  Sketches  and  Speeches 

figures,  about  two  feet  in  length,  and  stated,  of 
course,  in  Sterling.  As  I  had  led  my  school  in 
Arithmetic  no  trial  task  could  have  suited  me 
better.  I  added  them  up  rapidly,  and  only 
once.  When  I  returned  them  to  Mr.  Smith  he 
first  glanced  at  the  clock  —  he  was  evidently 
timing  me  —  and  expressed  surprise  at  my 
speed.  "Now,"  he  said,  taking  down  the  grand 
totals,  "if  you  have  made  no  mistakes  this 
column  subtracted  from  that  column  will 
equal  this  other  column  subtracted  from  that 
other  column."  They  balanced  to  a  penny.  Mr. 
Smith  said  nothing  to  me,  but  taking  the  re- 
turn with  him  he  went  into  the  Manager's 
room,  closing  the  door  behind  him.  I  do  not 
know  what  he  said  to  Mr.  Nicholson,  but  I 
have  no  doubt  it  was  complimentary  to  my- 
self or  Madras  College,  or  possibly  to  both. 
Thus  happily  began  my  work  as  junior  clerk  in 
that  office.  My  salary  was  $4.00  per  month  the 
first  year,  |6.oo  the  second  and  $8.00  the  third 
year.  At  the  end  of  the  three  years,  however,  I 
was  an  experienced  Bank  clerk  capable  of  fill- 
ing any  clerical  position  in  a  Bank. 

Mr.  Nicholson  was  also  Agent  for  several 
Fire  Insurance  Companies,  and  was  several 
times  Assignee  in  Bankruptcy  in  commercial 
failures.  I  helped  him  in  these  personal  affairs 


Banking  in  Scotland  and  Canada    5  7 

without  any  idea  of  pecuniary  reward  and  was 
glad  to  get  the  experience.  I  am  not  boasting 
of  this.  I  am  simply  recording  the  spirit  which 
then  pervaded  such  matters.  No  Bank  clerk  of 
that  day  would  have  felt  or  acted  differently. 
Mr.  John  Nicholson  was  a  Christian  business 
man  of  the  highest  type,  who  left  an  impres- 
sion on  my  youthful  mind  that  is  still  fresh 
and  helpful.  He  afterwards  filled  a  national 
position  in  Scottish  Banking  and  Church  Life, 
and  died  a  few  years  ago,  known  and  highly 
respected  by  the  whole  country.  Perhaps  noth- 
ing done  in  the  Clydesdale  Bank  affords  a 
stronger  contrast  to  present-day  ideas  than  the 
method  of  "Clearing"  with  the  other  Banks  in 
the  City.  As  Scottish  currency  consists  of  notes 
issued  by  the  Banks,  the  clearings  included  cash 
as  well  as  checks.  Part  of  the  junior's  duties, 
therefore,  was  to  take  the  checks  and  notes  of 
other  Banks  to  their  counters  for  redemption  by 
draft  on  their  Head  Office.  In  so  doing  we  did 
not  even  use  a  hand  bag,  but  carried  the  money 
openly  (and  rather  proudly,  for  it  lent  an  air  of 
importance)  in  bundles  in  our  hands.  Such  was 
the  feeling  of  security  that  the  idea  that  the 
boys  might  be  held  up  and  robbed  never  en- 
tered anyone's  head.  The  same  methods  are 
probably  still  in  use  in  St.  Andrews. 


5  8  Sketches  and  Speeches 

Promotion  in  a  Scotch  Bank  is  a  very  slow 
process,  and  at  the  end  of  my  apprenticeship 
in  the  Clydesdale  I  was  eager  to  follow  my 
brother  to  Canada.  He  told  me  to  write  a 
letter  of  application  to  the  Bank  of  Nova 
Scotia,  Halifax,  with  which  Bank  he  was  then 
connected,  and  to  get  a  letter  of  recommenda- 
tion from  my  employer.  This  was  where  my 
friend,  Mr.  Nicholson,  got  even  with  me  for 
the  work  I  had  done  for  him  personally,  for  he 
wrote  such  a  strong  letter  that  the  General 
ManageroftheBank  of  NovaScotia  authorized 
my  brother  to  cable  for  me  at  once.  That  cable 
was  Scotch,  for  it  wasted  neither  words  nor 
money.  It  consisted  of  the  one  word  "Come.'' 

Again  the  romantic  glamour  of  Banking 
filled  my  mind,  and  after  a  short  period  of  pay- 
ing farewell  visits  to  relatives,  and  of  prepara- 
tion in  the  way  of  supplies  of  clothing,  etc.,  I 
was  ready  to  obey  the  summons. 

To  show  the  kind  of  mother  I  had  let  me  say 
that,  although  a  busy  woman,  she  knitted  one 
whole  sock  every  weekday  during  that  period 
of  preparation,  and  I  left  with  fine  woolen 
socks  enough  to  keep  my  feet  cozy  in  cold 
Canada  for  years  to  come.  The  wrench  of  part- 
ing with  that  mother  who,  motherlike,  felt  it 
the  more,  because  of  the  trouble  she  had  had  in 


Banking  in  Scotland  and  Canada  5  9 

pulling  me  through  a  delicate  childhood,  is  as 
fresh  in  my  recollection  as  if  it  had  occurred 
yesterday.  Although  no  longer  delicate,  I  wept 
in  her  arms  and  was  not  ashamed.  After  a 
quieter  good-bye  to  my  dear  father,  who  came 
to  the  railway  junction  with  me,  I  took  pas- 
sage from  Glasgow  in  March,  1880,  and  after 
a  stormy  voyage  of  fourteen  days  I  arrived  in 
Halifax.  As  a  side  light  on  the  circumscribed 
life  of  a  Scotch  lad  in  those  days  I  may  men- 
tion, in  passing,  that  although  beautiful  Edin- 
burgh was  only  forty-four  miles  distant  from 
St.  Andrews,  I  had  never  seen  it  until  I  passed 
through  it  on  my  way  to  Glasgow  to  sail  for 
Canada.  On  my  arrival  in  Halifax  I  was  for- 
tunate in  having  a  home  to  go  to  as  it  was 
arranged  that  I  should  live  with  my  brother's 
mother-in-law,  Mrs.  Murray.  The  office  of  the 
Bank  having  a  staff  of  about  twenty  seemed 
imposing  to  me,  coming  from  an  office  with  a 
staff" of  three.  I  went  to  work  with  eager  enjoy- 
ment, my  first  job  being  at  the  correspondence 
desk.  I  liked  Halifax  and  its  people,  and  look 
back  upon  my  stay  there  with  pleasure. 

My  brother  Jim  was  then  Agent  of  the  Bank 
at  Woodstock,  New  Brunswick.  Before  I  had 
been  long  in  Halifax  he  found  occasion  to  be 
there,  and  entering  the  Bank  he  walked  all 


6o  Sketches  and  Speeches 

around  me  before  I  recognized  him.  He,  of 
course,  knew  where  to  look  for  me.  We  had 
not  seen  each  other  for  ten  years,  and  it  was 
a  happy  meeting. 

Soon  afterwards  he  had  me  sent  to  Wood- 
stock to  relieve  his  teller,  and  I  had  my  first 
meeting  with  his  good  wife  and  family.  Wood- 
stock was  only  a  little  backwoods  town.  It  had 
no  Bank  until  Jim  opened  the  branch  there. 
The  branch  did  well  from  the  start.  Jim  was 
very  popular  and  quite  contented.  He  after- 
wards became  one  of  the  leading  Bankers  in 
America,  and  accumulated  a  fortune;  but  I 
doubt  if  he  was  ever  happier  in  his  whole  ca- 
reer than  he  was  in  Woodstock. 

From  Woodstock  I  was  sent  to  St.  John, 
New  Brunswick,  to  relieve  the  staff  there 
during  the  summer  holidays.  After  that  I  was 
recalled  to  Halifax  and  given  charge  of  the 
General  Ledgers.  This  was  considered  the 
hardest  clerical  job  in  the  Bank.  As  illustrating 
how  a  well-managed  Bank  grows,  I  may  say 
that  the  resources  of  the  Bank  of  Nova  Scotia 
as  I  recall  putting  them  down  on  the  balance 
sheet  then  were  about  $4,000,000.  Now  they 
are  $224,000,000.  It  was  then  a  local  institu- 
tion having  a  few  branches  in  the  Maritime 
Provinces.  It  is  now  one  of  the  largest  Cana- 


Banking  in  Scot/and  and  Canada  6 1 

dian  Banks  having  branches  from  the  Atlantic 
to  the  Pacific. 

When  I  had  been  in  the  Bank  about  a  year 
it  was  decided  to  open  a  branch  at  Winnipeg, 
Manitoba  —  then  a  booming  town  of  the  new 
Northwest  —  and  I  was  sent  there  as  ac- 
countant. I  took  with  me  $40,000  in  cash,  and 
was  seven  days  on  the  way,  stopping  a  night 
at  Chicago  and  two  nights  at  Minneapolis. 
The  cash  was  in  a  leather  bag,  and  as  I  never 
parted  with  it  for  a  moment  day  or  night  it 
became  a  great  deal  of  a  burden  during  that 
long  journey.  By  reason  of  missing  connections 
at  Minneapolis  I  had  to  stay  there  over  Sunday, 
and  was  two  days  later  in  reaching  Winnipeg 
than  I  should  have  been.  I  resented  the  burden 
of  carrying  the  cash,  and  so  I  forebore  to  tele- 
graph the  General  Manager  from  Minneapolis. 
I  thought  I  would  give  him  a  taste  of  the 
anxiety  about  that  $40,000  which  he  had  laid 
upon  me,  and  I  did,  for  when  I  reached  Win- 
nipeg the  Manager,  who  had  preceded  me, 
showed  me  several  telegrams  from  the  General 
Manager  inquiring  if  I  had  arrived  ''with  the 
remittance." 

We  had  difficulty  in  securing  an  office  in 
Winnipeg,  but  as  soon  as  I  arrived  with  the 
money  we  started  business.  For  a  few  days. 


6  2  sketches  and  Speeches 

while  a  corner  of  an  office  was  being  prepared 
for  us,  I  paid  checks  out  of  the  leather  bag 
attached  to  my  person.  After  a  while  we  se- 
cured a  fair  office,  but  the  security  of  the  safe 
being  doubtful,  it  became  my  duty  to  sleep  in 
front  of  it  on  a  shake-down  and  armed  with 
a  revolver.  Our  books  from  Head  Office  were 
expected  daily,  but  owing  to  floods  they  did 
not  arrive  for  six  weeks,  during  which  period  I 
kept  the  records  of  the  Bank  on  large  sheets  of 
Manila  wrapping  paper.  When  the  books  came 
I  had  to  copy  the  six  weeks'  work  into  them 
besides  keeping  up  the  daily  records.  This 
kept  me  at  work  every  night  until  midnight  for 
a  while,  and  then  I  would  prepare  my  bed  in 
front  of  the  safe  and  sleep  until  seven  a.  m., 
when  I  had  to  get  out  to  make  room  for  the 
scrubwoman.  This  was  rather  strenuous  work, 
but  I  did  not  object.  It  was  tinged  with  ad- 
venture and  romance  to  my  mind.  Was  I  not  a 
tenderfoot  in  the  great  Northwest,  roughing 
it  like  a  man,  and  I  so  recently  a  boy  in  the  old 
Bank  in  the  Ancient  City  by  the  Sea? 

The  Manager  was  an  Englishman  —  a  fine 
fellow  —  but  not  very  shrewd.  As  an  example 
of  the  difference  between  an  Englishman's 
point  of  view  and  that  of  a  Scotchman,  take 
this:  A  wholesale  liquor  dealer  had  opened 


Banking  in  Scotland  and  Canada  6  3 

an  account  with  the  Bank,  and  shortly  after- 
ward I  was  at  the  Manager's  house  for  dinner. 
After  dining  he  said,  "Come  up  stairs  and  see 

the  nice  present  Mr sent  me." 

Following  him  to  an  upstairs  room  he  showed 
me  fourteen  demijohns  of  various  liquors  all 
standing  in  an  imposing  row.  I  said  nothing, 
but  I  must  have  looked  something  for  the 
Manager  said,  "Now,  Scotty,  what  are  you 
thinking?  Come  on  out  with  it."  "Well,"  I  re- 
plied, "I  was  just  thinking  that  these  liquors 
have  cost  you  nothing  and  I  hope  they  will 
cost  the  Bank  nothing."  He  roared  with  laugh- 
ter, evidently  thinking  it  a  great  joke.  Never- 
theless, the  liquor  dealer  made  a  disgraceful 
failure  within  a  few  months,  and  these  liquors 
cost  the  Bank  exactly  one  thousand  dollars  a 
demijohn,  or  fourteen  thousand  dollars. 

The  year  I  spent  in  Winnipeg  was  one  of  the 
happiest  and  most  eventful  in  my  life,  for  it 
was  there  that  I  met  and  courted  my  wife.  I 
fell  half  in  love  with  her  by  looking  at  her  in 
church,  and  the  first  time  I  met  her  and  walked 
home  with  her,  I  fell  the  rest  of  the  way.  She 
was  then  supposed  (erroneously,  as  I  after- 
ward learned)  to  be  engaged  to  a  young  pro- 
fessor in  Manitoba  College  —  a  man  of  fine 
mind  and  character  whom  I  greatly  admired. 


64  sketches  and  Speeches 

Nevertheless,  on  my  way  home  that  first  night 
I  definitely  decided  that  I  would  marry  her  if  I 
could.  Unfortunately  I  soon  found  that  I  had 
not  made  any  such  impression  on  her  as  she 
had  on  me!  But  earnestness  and  persistence 
count  a  lot  in  such  matters,  and  when  I  left 
Winnipeg  the  following  Spring,  we  were  en- 
gaged. 

On  my  return  to  Halifax  I  was  made  clerk  to 
the  General  Manager,  a  Scotchman  of  cranky 
disposition,  but  great  ability,  from  whom  I 
learned  much.  The  following  winter  the  Bank 
purchased  the  Union  Bank  of  Prince  Edward 
Island,  and  I  was  sent  to  Charlottetown  to 
break  the  staff  into  our  ways.  After  a  pleasant 
sojourn  of  three  months  there  I  was  recalled  to 
Halifax.  The  return  journey  gave  me  another 
touch  of  adventure,  for  I  crossed  from  Cape 
Traverse  to  Cape  Tormentine  on  broken  ice 
like  Eliza  in  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin.  Harnessed  to 
a  boat,  carrying  the  mails,  the  guides  and  I  had 
four  hours'  hard  work  alternately  pulling  the 
boat  over  ice  and  rowing  it  in  open  water.  On 
broken  blocks  of  ice  our  feet  were  often  under 
water,  and  when  any  one  of  us  sank  as  deep  as 
the  knees  he  saved  himself  by  falling  into  the 
boat  while  the  others  dragged  it  onwards.  From 
Cape  Tormentine,  without  changing  my  wet 


Banking  in  Scotland  and  Canada  6  5 

clothes,  I  drove  to  Amherst,  a  distance  of  forty 
miles  in  a  sleigh  along  icy  roads,  and  in  a 
wintry  storm,  arriving  about  one  o'clock  Sun- 
day morning.  But  I  was  young  then,  so  I  arose 
for  breakfast  none  the  worse,  and  went  to  the 
Presbyterian  Church  where  I  heard  an  excel- 
lent sermon. 

Arrived  in  Halifax  I  resumed  my  duties  as 
General  Manager's  clerk,  and  the  following 
summer,  at  the  age  of  twenty-two,  I  got  my 
first  chance  at  the  Management  of  a  Branch, 
and  the  responsibility  of  loaning  money.  The 
Manager  of  the  little  Branch  at  Digby,  N.  S., 
being  sick,  I  was  sent  to  relieve  him,  and  was 
there  for  two  months.  On  taking  over  the  dis- 
counted notes  I  put  aside  about  a  dozen,  and 
when  I  had  finished  the  task  the  following 
conversation  took  place  between  myself  — 
the  smart  youngster  from  the  Head  Office  — 
and  Mr.  Churchill,  the  shrewd  old  country- 
banker  who  had  been  at  it  for  thirty  years  in 
Digby. 

The  youngster:  "The  bills  balance,  Mr. 
Churchill,  but  I  think  that  the  endorsements 
on  these  notes  are  forgeries.  The  maker  of  the 
note  forged  the  endorser's  name  in  each  case." 

Mr.  Churchill  (taking  the  notes  in  question 
and   calmly  examining  them):  "Well,  young 


6  6  Sketches  and  Speeches 

man,  you  are  pretty  smart.  You  did  not  pick 
out  all  the  forgeries  in  the  box,  but  all  of  those 
you  did  pick  out  are  forgeries  right  enough." 

'The youngster,  \r\  astonishment:  "Well,  why 
don't  you  have  the  forgers  arrested? 

Mr.  Churchill:  "Arrested?  Not  on  your  life! 
These  notes  are  the  best  loans  in  the  Bank.  The 
makers  know  they  are  forgeries.  I  know  they 
are  forgeries,  but  the  makers  don't  know  that 
I  know  they  are  forgeries.  If  you  are  here  when 
these  notes  mature  you  will  find  every  one  of 
them  will  be  promptly  paid.  The  makers  are 
farmer-fishermen.  They  are  not  running  away, 
and  they  will  take  good  care  that  the  endorser 
does  not  get  a  notice  of  the  non-payment  of 
the  note." 

I  was  there  long  enough  to  notice  that  these 
notes  were  promptly  paid  —  generally  a  day 
or  two  before  maturity! 

Upon  my  return  to  Halifax  I  thought  it  my 
duty  to  report  this  kind  of  business  to  the  Gen- 
eral Manager  and  to  ask  if  I  should  write  Mr. 
Churchill  and  put  a  stop  to  it.  "No,  No,"  said 
the  General  Manager  laughing,  "let  him  go  on 
discounting  his  forgeries  —  he  has  made  no 
loss  in  many  years." 

Shortly  after  this  I  was  sent  to  Amherst  to 
take  temporary  charge  so  that  Mr.  H.  C.  Mc- 


Banking  in  Scotland  and  Canada  6  7 

Leod,  the  Manager,  might  proceed  to  Winni- 
peg to  take  the  management  there.  Amherst 
was  a  more  important  Branch.  The  first  day  I 
was  in  charge,  I  remember,  I  discounted  over 
one  hundred  notes.  I  was  there  all  winter.  My 
clerking  days  were  now  over,  and  I  was  slated 
for  the  Management  of  the  next  vacant  Branch. 
This  turned  out  to  be  Fredericton,  the  capital 
of  New  Brunswick,  a  pretty  little  city  on  the 
St.  John  River,  containing  a  House  of  Parlia- 
ment, a  fine  Cathedral,  and  pleasant  society 
but  little  business. 

Feeling  now  settled,  I  was  in  a  position  to 
marry  —  or  I  thought  I  was.  Looking  back  I 
now  marvel  at  the  reckless  courage  I  displayed 
in  assuming  the  responsibilities  of  marriage  on 
the  salary  I  was  earning.  But  Agnes  Kerr,  the 
girl  in  Winnipeg,  had  more  courage,  so  I 
journeyed  there  once  more  and  we  were  mar- 
ried on  June  9,  1885.  We  took  a  cottage  in 
Fredericton  and  proceeded  to  furnish  it  by 
degrees.  When  my  brother  Jim,  then  Inspector 
of  the  Bank,  later  visited  Fredericton  officially, 
our  cottage  was  all  furnished  except  the  parlor 
which  contained  nothing  but  a  Brussels  carpet. 
On  entering,  Jim  quickly  took  in  the  situation, 
and  after  kissing  the  bride,  he  stepped  into  the 
parlor  and  deposited  his  two  hundred  and  fifty 


6  8  Sketches  and  Speeches 

pounds  squarely  on  the  said  carpet  by  sitting 
down  on  it. 

What  happy  days  those  were!  We  have  fur- 
nished various  houses  since,  but  all  of  them 
combined  have  not  meant  as  much,  or  yielded 
as  great  a  thrill,  as  the  building  of  that  first 
little  nest.  By  reason  of  many  wedding  presents 
young  people  nowadays  often  start  with  more 
things  than  they  can  use  but,  in  my  opinion, 
they  miss  much  by  having  no  experience  like 
ours. 

Marriage,  no  matter  how  happily  mated  the 
pair  may  be,  soon  develops  its  responsibilities. 
Within  a  year  my  wife  had  been  literally  with- 
in the  valley  of  the  shadow  in  giving  birth  to 
our  oldest  son,  Robert.  Thanks  to  a  fine  con- 
stitution she  recovered,  and  during  the  five 
years  we  lived  in  Fredericton  our  two  daugh- 
ters, Marion  and  Ethel,  were  added  to  our 
happiness,  and  they  have  continued  to  add  to 
it  ever  since.  Those  were  five  happy  years. 

We  had  many  friends,  and  when  we  came 
to  the  hour  of  leaving  for  the  great  City  of 
Minneapolis,  it  was  with  tears  and  tender 
hearts  that  we  said  our  good-byes.  There  was 
a  regiment  of  regular  Canadian  soldiers  at 
Fredericton,  and  I  was  an  honorary  member  of 
the  ofiicers'  mess.  On  the  eve  of  my  departure 


Banking  in  Scotland  and  Canada  6  9 

they  honored  me  with  a  fine  dinner,  at  which 
many  kind  speeches  were  made,  while  the  mili- 
tary band  discoursed  music  outside.  I  have 
never  felt  quite  so  important  since! 

Promotion,  however,  was  slow  in  a  Cana- 
dian Bank,  and  with  my  growing  family  I  was 
forced  to  look  to  a  wider  field.  Through  my 
brother  Jim,  who  was  then  Cashier  of  the 
Northwestern  National  Bank,  Minneapolis,  I 
secured  a  job  with  the  Pillsbury-Washburn 
Flour  Mills  Co.,  there.  I  did  not  intend  to  give 
up  Banking  and  took  this  position  only  as  a 
stepping  stone  to  an  opening  in  an  American 
Bank.  Selling  our  furniture,  we  set  out  for 
Minneapolis  with  faith  and  courage,  but  with 
nothing  else. 


CHAPTER    VI 

BANKING  EXPEHIENCE 
IN  TJ^E  U.  S.  A. 

"  Forward,  as  occasion  offers  — 
Be  satisfied  with  success  in  even 
the  smallest  matter,  and  think  that  even 
such  a  result  is  no  trifle." 

Marcus  Aurelius 


^m'^^N  MY  new  job  in  Minneapolis,  I 
S?  ^^^  ^"^y  ^  high-grade  clerk  in  a 
M  business  which  did  not  interest 


^m  "^  ^p  me,  and  the  faith  and  courage 
^diSlflS  referred  to  in  the  last  chapter 
were  much  m  demand  durmg 
the  next  four  months.  At  the  end  of  that  time  I 
was  lucky  enough  to  secure  the  position  of 
Assistant  Cashier  of  the  American  Exchange 
Bank,  Duluth,  and  was  once  more  happy  in 
my  work. 

As  an  example  of  how  a  word  may  change 
the  current  of  one's  life,  I  may  mention  that 

71 


7  2  sketches  and  Speeches 

when  I  applied  for  this  position  I  was  asked  to 
visit  Duluth  so  that  they  might  look  me  over. 
I  had  heard  that  several  others  had  answered 
the  same  request,  but  none  of  them  had  secured 
the  job.  The  Bank  authorities  were  evidently 
hard  to  please,  so  I  combed  the  whiskers  which 
I  then  sported  and  tried  to  look  as  old  as  pos- 
sible. After  taking  me  before  the  directors  Mr. 
MacFarlane,  a  fine  fellow-countryman  from 
Stornoway, proceeded  to  turn  me  down  as  gent- 
ly as  his  kind  heart  prompted  him.  He  said  I 
was  all  right  in  every  way  but  one,  and  that 
I  was  not  responsible  for  that  one  defect — I 
was  too  young.  "How  old,"  I  asked,  "do  you 
think  the  man  you  want  should  be?"  "Oh,  at 
least  fifty,"  he  replied.  "Huh!"  said  I,  "he 
would  not  be  worth  a  damn.  If  he  is  looking 
for  such  a  job  as  Assistant  Cashier  of  this 
little  Bank  at  fifty  it  will  only  be  because  he 
has  been  a  failure  up  to  that  time."  "Well, 
well,"  Mr.  MacFarlane  replied,  "take  a  look 
around  the  town  and  come  in  and  say  good- 
bye before  you  go  home." 

I  left  his  office  with  keen  disappointment, 
but  returned  in  the  afternoon  as  instructed. 
On  meeting  Mr.  MacFarlane  again  he  smiled 
genially  and  said,  "Young  man,  you  used  rath- 
er strong  language  when  you  were  here."  "Yes," 


Banking  Experience  in  U.  S,  A.     73 

I  said,  "I  seldom  use  such  language,  but  I 
meant  it  that  time.'' 

"Well,"  he  said  "after  you  left  I  got  think- 
ing it  over  and  I  saw  you  were  right,  so  I  sent 
for  the  directors,  quoted  to  them  your  lan- 
guage, and  they  saw  you  were  right.  So  we  have 
decided  that  you  are  the  man  we  want." 

I  have  seldom  been  more  elated.  I  went  out 
rejoicing  and  sent  my  wife  a  telegram  the 
receipt  of  which  caused  her  to  dance  a  jig  with 
the  children. 

After  a  year  in  Duluth,  where  our  son 
David  R.  Jr.  was  born,  my  brother  was  called 
to  Chicago  and  I  was  appointed  to  succeed  him 
as  Cashier  of  the  Northwestern  National  Bank 
of  Minneapolis.  The  responsibilities  of  this 
position  were  greater  than  any  I  had  before 
assumed,  but  I  found  that  the  principles  of 
correct  banking  are  practically  the  same  every- 
where, and  the  amount  involved  makes  little 
difference.  I  now  worried  no  more  over  a  doubt- 
ful loan  of  1 1 00,000  than  I  had  worried  over 
one  of  $500.00  in  Fredericton.  During  the  four 
years  I  occupied  this  position  the  outstanding 
financial  event  was  the  panic  of  1893.  The 
Bank,  however,  as  might  be  expected  after 
Jim's  management  was  in  a  thoroughly  sound 
condition,  and  weathered  the  storm  like  a  good 


74  Sketches  and  Speeches 

ship  at  sea.  Toward  the  end  of  my  stay,  the 
Bryan  Free  Silver  craze  got  under  way,  and  I 
attracted  some  notice  by  taking  up  the  cause 
of  sound  money  with  tongue  and  pen.  Other- 
wise my  business  experience  in  Minneapolis 
wasuneventful.  I  gained,  however,  in  knowledge 
of  the  business  of  the  country  and  in  acquaint- 
ance with  some  of  its  big  business  men.  When, 
therefore,  an  offer  came  from  the  Union 
National  Bank  of  Chicago  to  take  its  Vice- 
Presidency  and  Management  (the  President 
being  inactive)  I  felt  that  I  could  qualify, 
especially  as  the  offer  doubled  my  salary. 

We  left  Minneapolis  with  regret,  impelled 
only  by  the  greater  remuneration  and  wider 
field  which  Chicago  offered. 

It  was  from  Minneapolis  that  I  first  returned 
home  to  Scotland.  My  father  desired  a  family 
reunion,  and  all  of  us,  with  all  of  our  children, 
met  again  in  the  Ancient  City.  A  family  photo 
of  our  parents,  their  children,  their  children-in- 
law  and  their  children's  children  showed  a 
group  of  thirty-eight.  I  played  again  on  the 
old  links,  swam  again  in  the  Witch  Lake,  met 
again  my  former  schoolmates,  and  so  re-visited 
the  loved  scenes  of  my  boyhood.  Best  of  all,  I 
was  once  again  with  my  beloved  parents,  my 
three  dear  aunts,  and  many  others  of  my  kith 


Banking  Experience  in  U.  S.A.     75 

and  kin.  Of  course  they  all  admired  my  wife 
and  bairns,  and  I  was  a  proud  and  happy  man. 

The  Union  National  Bank  of  Chicago  had 
experienced  large  losses  during  the  panic  and 
was  not  in  good  standing,  but  I  satisfied  myself 
before  agreeing  to  take  the  management  that, 
while  the  surplus  was  gone,  the  capital  was 
still  unimpaired.  Jim  was  ill  at  the  time  and 
advised  against  it,  but  I  thought  I  heard 
opportunity  calling.  Two  years  later,  acting  for 
my  Bank,  I  bought  all  of  the  stock  of  the  Hide 
and  Leather  National  Bank,  a  small  but  clean 
institution,  and  merged  it,  overnight,  with  the 
Union  National.  In  connection  with  this  pur- 
chase Mr.  Ellsworth,  the  inactive  President, 
kindly  retired,  I  was  elected  President,  and  Mr. 
John  McLaren,  formerly  President  of  theHide& 
Leather,  became  Vice-President.  I  was  thus,  at 
the  age  of  thirty-six.  President  of  a  Bank  with 
$2,000,000  capital  but  a  run-down  business. 
When  I  took  hold  in  1896  the  deposits  had  de- 
creased to  $4,000,000.  During  the  five  years  of 
my  incumbency  they  increased  to  $15,000,000. 

One  of  the  happy  memories  of  my  connec- 
tion with  the  Union  National  is  my  close  asso- 
ciation with  its  Cashier,  August  Blum,  a 
courteous  and  learned  gentleman,  an  upright 
business  man,  a  good  banker,  a  ready  wit  and 


7  6  Sketches  and  Speeches 

a  genial  comrade.  He  is  master  of  many  lan- 
guages, is  familiar  with  the  literature  of  many 
countries,  and  has  many  friends  among  whom 
I  still  count  myself,  although  as  he  has  retired 
to  spend  the  evening  of  his  days  in  California, 
I  now  seldom  see  him. 

In  the  year  1899  we  built  and  occupied 
our  present  home  in  Evanston,  and  in  March 
1900  our  youngest  son,  James  Russell,  was  born 
in  it.  Eight  years  had  passed  since  David's 
birth,  and  we  were  all  very  happy  to  have  a 
baby  in  the  house  again. 

In  the  summer  of  1900  my  brother  Jim  and  I 
again  visited  Scotland  to  see  our  parents  who, 
we  feared,  were  failing  in  health.  We  were  al- 
ways glad  that  we  went,  for  they  both  passed 
away  before  the  year  closed.  They  had  more 
than  half  a  century  of  life  together,  and  in  their 
death  they  were  not  divided,  for  they  died  only 
four  weeks  apart.  If,  as  a  family,  we  have  done 
fairly  well,  we  owe  it  chiefly  to  the  fact  that 
we  had  parents  who  taught  us  by  example  and 
precept  that  integrity  of  character  is  at  once 
more  important  than  success,  and  the  main 
source  of  success.  Father,  although  somewhat 
easy  going,  had  absolute  honesty,  good  judg- 
ment, patience  and  common  sense,  while 
mother,  in  addition  toother  fine  qualities,  pos- 


Banking  Experience  in  U.S.A.     77 

sessed  energy  and  ambition  in  abundance  — 
especially  for  the  success  of  her  children.  Their 
union  produced  these  qualities  in  varied  com- 
binations in  their  children,  but  I  shall  not  here 
undertake  to  apportion  them.  Perhaps  each  of 
us  thinks  he  has  them  all! 

On  the  return  trip  from  Scotland  Jim  and  I 
drew  up  an  agreement  of  absorption  of  my 
Bank  by  his.  Soon  afterwards  this  was  con- 
summated, and  I  became  First  Vice-President 
of  the  First  National  Bank  of  Chicago  of  which 
my  brother  was  President.  I  occupied  this 
position  for  six  years,  and  during  that  period 
this  great  Bank  took  three  important  forward 
steps.  It  absorbed  the  Metropolitan  National 
Bank,  with  its  deposits  of  $22,000,000,  it  start- 
ed as  an  affiliated  and  jointly-owned  Bank,  the 
First  Trust  and  Savings  Bank,  which  has  been 
a  very  great  success,  and  it  built  its  present 
building  at  the  corner  of  Dearborn  and  Mon- 
roe Streets. 

As  an  example  of  how  well-managed  institu- 
tions grow  in  Chicago,  I  may  say  that  Jim  and 
I  felt  we  were  building  for  fifty  years'  growth, 
but  now,  after  twenty  years,  the  joint  Banks 
have  acquired  the  large  Fort  Dearborn  Bank 
Building  on  their  west  side  and  are  building  an 
addition  thereto  because  they  need  the  space. 


7  8  Sketches  and  Speeches 

About  the  close  of  the  year  1906  a  group  of 
business  friends  suggested  to  me  the  starting  of 
a  new  National  Bank.  From  boyhood  I  had 
entertained  an  ambition  to  be  the  founder  of  a 
Bank,  and  as  the  proposal  was  based  on  terms 
that  made  it  possible  for  me  to  become  a  con- 
siderable stockholder  in  the  new  institution,  I 
agreed  to  it.  I  resigned  from  the  First  National 
and  left  December  31,  1906,  without  having 
made  a  move  towards  starting  the  new  Bank, 
and  on  February  5,  1907,  the  National  City 
Bank  of  Chicago  opened  for  business  with 
$1,500,000  capital  paid  up,  and  myself  as 
President.  The  deposits  taken  in  the  first  day 
were  over  $2,000,000.  This  was  quick  work  and 
a  good  start.  At  this  time  I  was  fortunate  in 
securing  the  services  as  Cashier  of  Mr.  H.  E. 
Otte,  who  had  been  with  me  in  the  old  Union 
National  and  First  National.  He  set  up  the 
machine,  arranging  all  the  details  of  books, 
forms,  etc.,  selecting  a  staff  of  about  twenty 
clerks  and  instructing  them  in  their  duties.  The 
result  was,  that  as  many  remarked,  the  mo- 
ment the  doors  were  opened,  the  Bank  began 
running  as  smoothly  as  if  it  had  been  going  for 
years.  Mr.  Otte  has  been  at  my  right  hand 
ever  since.  It  was  not  long  before  he  was  made 
Vice-President,  and  in  January,  1924,  he  be- 


Banking  Experience  in  U.  S.A.     79 

came  President,  while  I  became  Chairman  of 
the  Board.  He  is  a  man  of  the  highest  charac- 
ter and  a  thorough  Banker  familiar  with  every 
detail  of  the  business,  and  possessed  of  shrewd 
judgment  in  the  loaning  of  money.  He  has 
been  a  great  support  to  me,  and  I  am  glad  to 
know  that  while  faithfully  serving  the  Bank  he 
has  himself  prospered. 

The  new  Bank  grew  rapidly  at  first,  and 
steadily  later,  until  it  had  deposits  of  $35,000,- 
000,  capital  of  $2,000,000  and  surplus  earnings 
of  $1,500,000.  It  paid  dividends  every  year, 
except  the  first,  at  the  rate  of  six  per  cent, 
later  eight  per  cent,  and  the  last  three  years 
ten  per  cent  per  annum.  These  results  compare 
favorably  with  the  history  of  any  National 
Bank  in  Chicago  of  similar  age,  and  I  believe 
I  may  claim  for  the  Bank  with  which  I  have 
been  most  closely  identified,  a  fair  measure 
of  success.  During  the  eighteen  years  of  the 
Bank's  existence  I  have  been  very  happy  in  my 
business  because  I  always  had  the  full  con- 
fidence of  the  Board,  and  the  loyal  support 
of  the  officers  under  me.  Among  the  officers 
(now  officers  of  the  Republic)  the  following 
were  with  me  when  we  started  theNationalCity 
Bank:  F.  A.  Crandall,  Vice-President,  R.  B. 
Fuessle,  Vice-President,  T.  R.  Thorsen,  Asst. 


8  o  Sketches  and  Speeches 

Vice  President,  and  W.  G.  McLaury,  Vice- 
President,  has  been  nearly  as  long.  For  all  of 
these  men  I  have  the  highest  regard,  and  they 
have  all  contributed  their  full  share  to  the  suc- 
cess of  the  Bank. 

All  the  expenses  of  banking,  including  taxes, 
have  materially  increased  in  this  country  dur- 
ing and  since  the  Great  War,  while  the  income, 
composed  chiefly  of  the  discount  on  loans,  has 
remained  the  same.  It  is,  therefore,  now  neces- 
sary to  do  business  on  a  large  scale,  and  there 
have  consequently  been  many  amalgamations 
of  banks  In  recent  years.  For  this  reason  the 
National  City  Bank  and  the  National  Bank  of 
the  Republic  have  lately  been  consolidated. 
The  Republic  being  the  older  and  larger  bank 
and  a  combination  of  the  names  being  too  long 
for  practical  purposes,  I  reluctantly  consented 
to  the  disappearance  of  our  name.  In  all  other 
respects  the  consolidation  was  on  an  equal 
basis. 

Our  office  is  a  handsome  one.  In  a  fine  loca- 
tion, and  there  is  every  reason  to  expect  a  suc- 
cessful career  for  the  combined  banks.  The 
Chairman  of  the  Board  is  Mr.  John  A.  Lynch, 
a  courteous  and  experienced  Banker,  my  senior 
in  years.  He,  and  I  as  Vice-Chairman,  hope  to 
take    life    somewhat    easier    In    future.    The 


Banking  Experience  in  U.  S.  A.     8 1 

younger  and  more  active  executives  are  Mr. 
George  Woodruff,  also  Vice-Chairman,  a  very 
energetic  and  successful  Banker,  and  Mr.  Otte 
before  alluded  to,  as  President.  Under  them 
the  Bank  is  well  manned  in  all  its  depart- 
ments. 

Banking  in  the  U.  S.  A.  is  done  largely  on 
single  name  paper,  the  credits  being  based  on 
the  statements  of  the  borrowers.  Practically  we 
become  temporary  partners  in  every  kind  of 
business.  It  will  be  admitted  that  the  business 
is,  therefore,  varied  and  interesting  —  never 
monotonous.  Within  one  hour  a  city  banker 
may  discuss  half  a  dozen  different  kinds  of 
business,  and  decide  whether  to  loan  large 
amounts  in  each  case.  Thus  time  passes  quick- 
ly in  a  busy  Bank,  and  a  Banker's  years  are 
like  the  years  of  the  wicked  for  they  are 
''shortened.'' 

I  suppose  every  business  man  thinks  he  has 
more  than  his  share  of  worry  and  anxiety. 
There  is  at  least  this  great  difference  between 
Bankers  and  other  business  men.  Others,  as  a 
rule,  have  only  their  own  line  to  worry  about, 
whether  it  be  steel,  coal,  grain  or  what  not, 
whereas  the  Banker  is  vitally  interested  in  all 
lines  and  has  occasion  for  anxiety  if  there  is 
trouble  in  any  business  anywhere. 


8  2  sketches  and  Speeches 

From  this  sketch  it  will  be  noticed  that  I 
have  in  my  time  served  eight  banks.  I  hope  I 
served  them  well,  but  when  I  look  at  the  recent 
statements  of  some  of  them,  and  observe  how 
well  they  succeeded  after  I  left  them,  I  am  not 
inclined  to  boast. 


CHAPTER    VII 

ST,  ANDREWS,  NEW 
BKUNSWICK 


"How  happy  could  I  be  with  either 
Were  t'other  dear  charmer  away." 
Gay 


{W^ii^0^i^^}^^^^  ^^  another  St.   Andrews, 
^gg^3%2i^^s  less  famous,  equally  delightful 


'Hr^  ^^  ^s  ^  Summer  Resort,  and  even 


^^  ^p  more  beautifully  situated  than 

^B^^^^SfC^^J  its  ancient  Scottish  namesake. 
It  is  a  quaint  village  of  less 
than  a  thousand  inhabitants,  on  the  East 
Coast  of  New  Brunswick  and  near  the  River 
St.  Croix  which  is  the  boundary  between  the 
State  of  Maine  and  Canada.  It  was  settled  by 
some  of  the  Royalists  who  had  to  flee  from  the 
New  England  States  at  the  outbreak  of  the 
American  Revolution.  At  one  time  it  attained 
some  importance  as  a  sea  port,  but  that  day 

83 


84  sketches  and  Speeches 

passed  and  now  its  chief  support  is  drawn  from 
summer  visitors,  about  four  hundred  of  whom 
from  Upper  Canada  and  the  United  States 
spend  July  and  August  there.  An  excellent 
hotel  —  the  Algonquin  —  owned  by  the  Ca- 
nadian Pacific  Railway  cares  for  most  of  them, 
and  the  others  occupy  their  own,  or  rent 
cottages.  The  place  is  not  well  known  as  yet, 
but  I  notice  that  when  a  new  visitor,  or  a  new 
family,  has  discovered  it  and  spent  a  month 
there  they  seldom  fail  to  return  again  and  again. 

Its  golf  course,  close  to  the  seashore,  while 
good,  is  not  equal  to  that  of  the  ancient  city, 
but  the  surrounding  scenery  is  more  beautiful. 
Indeed  there  are  some  "tees"  on  the  course 
that  for  situation  and  scenery  could  scarcely 
be  surpassed  anywhere  in  the  world. 

While  living  in  Fredericton  —  about  sixty 
miles  distant  —  we  spent  a  fortnight's  holidays 
at  St.  Andrews  nearly  forty  years  ago,  and 
after  we  had  moved  to  Minneapolis  and  subse- 
quently to  Chicago,  we  yielded  to  the  lure  of 
the  place  and  returned  to  it  again  and  again. 
About  fifteen  years  ago  we  bought  and  re- 
modeled a  cottage,  started  a  garden,  and  made 
it  our  regular  summer  home.  We  think  there  is 
nothing  to  beat  it  for  that  purpose  on  this  con- 
tinent. 


Si,  Andrew fy  New  Brunswick     8  5 

The  town  of  St.  Stephen  is  about  twenty 
miles  distant  and  the  drive  there  along  the 
river  bank  reveals  scenery  of  rare  beauty  and 
charm. 

In  addition  to  golf  there  is  good  trout  fish- 
ing within  reach,  and  plenty  of  sailing  and  deep 
sea  fishing  for  those  who  enjoy  them. 

Last  summer  the  Presbyterian  Kirk  cele- 
brated its  hundredth  anniversary  with  appro- 
priate and  dignified  services. 

We  have  a  different  set  of  friends  there 
whom  it  is  a  delight  to  meet  year  after  year.  I 
and  my  family  love  it  because  of  the  memories 
of  happy  days  spent  on  the  links,  picnicking 
in  the  pine  woods,  sailing  on  the  bay,  or  mo- 
toring through  the  lovely  surrounding  coun- 
try. 

*      *       * 

These  sketches  are,  of  course,  a  mere  outline 
of  my  history.  I  have  engaged  in  numerous 
activities,  both  public  and  private,  and  have 
had  many  experiences  both  pleasant  and  un- 
pleasant which  are  not  recorded  here.  Were  I 
to  attempt  to  write  my  "life"  I  would  be  met 
by  the  difficulty  which  Mark  Twain  tried  to 
avoid  by  making  his  autobiography  a  posthu- 
mous one.  But  he  found  he  could  not  avoid  it, 
for  he  says  a  man  "cannot  be  straitly  and 


8  6  Sketches  and  Speeches 

unqualifiedly  frank  either  in  the  grave  or  out 
of  it." 

My  life  as  a  whole  has  been  about  an  aver- 
age one  and  I  view  it  with  mixed  feelings.  I 
have  had  many  blessings  and  also  my  share  of 
cares,  troubles  and  disappointments.  If  in 
some  lines  I  can  claim  a  fair  measure  of  suc- 
cess, I  am  conscious  of  such  failure  in  other 
directions  that  the  net  result  is  an  inclination 
both  to  thankfulness  and  humility.  In  this  I 
fancy  I  am  like  many  others. 


NOTE 

I  HAVE  made  many  speeches  of  which 
thefollowing  are  fair  samples.  The 
first  of  them  ''Grip  and  Grit""  was 
readfro?n  the  manuscript,  The  second 
''The  New  Federal  Reserve  Banks'^ was 
never  written;  what  is  here  pri?tted  is 
a  stenographic  report  of  an  extempore 
speech,Theother  manuscripts  werewr  it- 
ten  merely  aspreparation.  The  speeches 
actually  delivered^  while  not  committed 
to  memory^  closely  followed  the  manu- 
scripts with  the  addition  of  stories  a?id 
a  little  humor, 

D.  R.  F. 


SPEECHES    I 


GKIP  AND  GKIT 

Commencement  Address 

Lake  Forest  University,  Lake  Forest,  Illinois 

June  12,  1901 


Mr.  President^  Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

'LLOW  me  to  express  to  you  my 
keen  appreciation  of  the  honor 
your  President  did  me  when  he 
invited  me  to  take  part  in  the 
First  Commencement  Exercises 
of  the  Twentieth  Century  at 
Lake  Forest  University. 

I  am  sure  that  the  century  opens  auspicious- 
ly for  this  honored  seat  of  learning,  and  I  hope 
that  whatever  changes  may  take  place  the 
good  record  of  the  past  will  be  excelled  in  the 
years  to  come. 

I  suppose  there  is  an  atmosphere  about  uni- 
versity life  different  from  what  we  business 
men  breathe.  You  have  mathematics  instead 


90  Sketches  and  Speeches 

of  manufactures,  philosophy  instead  of  finance. 
Dead  languages  give  you  as  much  trouble  as 
dead  assets  give  us.  Your  quotations  are  from 
the  classics  —  not  from  the  markets.  Your 
speculations  are  only  scientific;  your  notes  are 
merely  footnotes  and  your  only  checks  are  the 
college  rules.  Bookkeeping  is  not  unknown 
among  you,  for  you  sometimes  borrow  and  for- 
get to  return,  but,  generally  speaking,  I  sup- 
pose there  is  little  in  common  between  college 
and  commercial  life.  For  that  very  reason  I  hope 
it  may  not  be  amiss  if  I  turn  your  thoughts  to- 
day away  from  the  academic  shades  of  Lake 
Forest  towards  the  turmoil  of  busy  Chicago. 

The  century  opens  brightly  for  our  country. 
Its  first  year  will  probably  be  distinguished  by 
two  achievements  of  world-wide  significance. 
In  volume  of  exports  we  shall  probably  show 
for  the  first  time  a  decided  lead  to  Great  Brit- 
ain —  so  long  first  in  the  commercial  race  of 
the  nations.  Last  year  we  closed  the  old  cen- 
tury just  about  even  with  her.  This  year  we 
expect  to  lead  her  by  a  substantial  sum.  We 
shall  also  probably  take  the  lead  this  year,  for 
the  first  time,  as  the  greatest  gold-producing 
nation. 

Something  like  regeneration  has  taken  place 
in  our  business  conditions  during  the  past  five 


Grip  and  Grit  9 1 

years.  The  United  States  has  become  a  world 
power  —  not  only  to  be  reckoned  with  in 
world  questions  of  diplomacy,  but  in  the  inter- 
national struggle  for  commercial  and  financial 
supremacy. 

As  late  as  1893  we  imported  more  merchan- 
dise than  we  exported.  By  1896  exports  exceed- 
ed imports  by  only  $102,000,000;  but  in  1897 
we  almost  trebled  these  figures,  and  in  1898 
we  doubled  that  again.  For  the  past  three  years 
the  balance  of  trade  in  our  favor  has  been 
about  $600,000,000  annually.  We  cannot  col- 
lect the  total  in  gold,  for  there  would  not  be 
gold  enough  in  Europe  to  pay  it,  so  we  have 
loaned  large  amounts  to  the  governments  of 
England,  Germany,  Russia,  Sweden  and  Swit- 
zerland, and  bought  back  our  own  securities  in 
large  quantities.  We  are  thus  becoming  the 
great  Creditor  Nation  of  the  world. 

In  the  production  of  coal,  iron,  steel,  oil,  ce- 
reals, meats,  the  precious  metals  and  manu- 
factured goods  we  are  forging  ahead  of  all  com- 
petitors. The  wonderful  resources  of  our  coun- 
try, which  are  as  yet  merely  tapped,  give  us 
an  advantage  which  the  enterprise  and  energy 
of  our  people  are  ever  ready  to  emphasize. 

We  have  emerged  from  our  struggle  against 
the  Free  Silver  fallacy  a  nation  of  financiers. 


92  sketches  and  Speeches 

Our  machinery  is  the  best,  our  methods  the 
most  direct.  Our  capital  is  ample,  our  credit 
unsurpassed.  The  consolidation  of  manage- 
ment and  capital  now  going  on  is  giving  us  a 
weapon  suited  to  our  gigantic  hands.  It  needs 
no  effort  of  the  imagination,  but  only  ordinary 
business  foresight  to  picture  our  country  in  the 
near  future  as  the  greatest  commercial  nation 
the  world  has  ever  seen,  possessed  of  material 
power  and  riches  hitherto  undreamed  of. 

Do  not  imagine  that  the  good  positions  are 
all  filled;  the  fortunes  all  made,  the  successes 
all  achieved.  The  next  quarter  of  a  century  in 
our  country  will  witness  more  commercial  suc- 
cess, national  and  individual,  than  any  previ- 
ous period.  Will  you,  young  man,  be  one  of  the 
successes  ?  Will  you  be  a  private  or  an  officer  in 
the  great  industrial  army?  Will  you  be  one  of 
the  multitude  who  obey,  or  one  of  the  few  who 
command?  Will  you  be  a  mere  cog  in  the  vast 
machinery,  or  one  of  the  engineers,  or  one  of 
the  owners?  The  answer  to  these  questions  de- 
pends chiefly  upon  yourself.  It  depends  upon 
how  you  will  grasp  the  opportunities,  over- 
come the  difficulties,  and  rise  superior  to  the 
defeats  which  the  future  has  in  store  for  you. 
It  depends  in  a  word  upon  how  you  have  been 
endowed,   and    how    you   will    cultivate    the 


Grip  and  Grit  9  3 

qualities  of  "Grip  and  Grit."  By  Grip  and 
Grit  I  mean  what  may  be  called  the  bulldog 
traits  of  human  nature.  I  have  had  great  re- 
spect for  the  bulldog  ever  since  I  had  a  misun- 
derstanding with  a  half-drunk  man  who  was 
aided  and  abetted  by  one  of  that  species;  and 
I  believe  the  bulldog  is  generally  respected. 
His  distinguishing  qualities  are  his  readiness 
to  take  hold,  and  his  reluctance  to  let  go  — 
his  "Grip  and  Grit." 

It  is  impossible  to  classify  many  specimens 
of  the  canine  race,  but  the  bulldog  is  always 
recognizable.  In  the  same  way  those  of  the  hu- 
man race  who  possess  his  qualities  are  easily 
distinguished  from  the  multitude  by  their 
force  of  character,  their  success  in  life,  and 
their  usefulness  in  the  world.  What  then  do  I 
mean  by  "Grip  and  Grit"  when  applied  to  hu- 
man beings  and  human  activity? 

By  Grip  I  mean  that  decision  of  character 
which  finds  or  makes  an  opportunity  and  then 
takes  hold  of  it  with  its  whole  might,  and  with 
full  determination  to  succeed.  It  is  not  weak 
wishing  —  it  is  prompt  acting.  It  is  not  hesi- 
tancy or  procrastination,  or  "Waiting  for 
Blucher  to  come  up."  It  is  beginning  the  strug- 
gle in  the  meantime  as  W^ellington  did  when 
he  achieved  Waterloo.   It  is  not  hoping,  like 


94  Sketches  and  Speeches 

Micawber,  for  "something  to  turn  up" ;  it  is  set- 
ting to  work  to  turn  something  up.  Grip  does 
not  wait  for  extraordinary  opportunities  —  it 
brings  extraordinary  application  to  bear  upon 
the  present  duty.  And  what  Grip  lays  hold  of 
Grit  carries  forward  to  the  end  in  face  of  dif- 
ficulties and  even  after  defeats.  When  Grip  has 
laid  its  hand  to  the  plow  Grit  allows  no  turning 
back. 

We  laud  genius,  but  these  great  qualities 
have  accomplished  more  than  genius,  and 
genius  has  never  accomplished  much  without 
them.  Indeed,  because  of  the  results  of  energy 
and  perseverance  many  men  have,  with  Locke, 
doubted  the  existence  of  genius,  while  others 
have  held  that  genius  is  itself  the  power  of  mak- 
ing and  continuing  efforts.  We  must  concede  to 
a  Shakespeare  or  a  Newton  the  transcendent 
gift  of  genius;  but  it  is  also  certain  that  they 
were  tireless  workers.  Newton,  when  asked  by 
what  means  he  had  made  his  wonderful  dis- 
coveries, answered  simply,  "By  always  think- 
ing unto  them,"  and  it  is  Shakespeare  who  says : 

^^ There  is  a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men 
Which^  taken  at  the  floods  leads  on  to  fortune; 
Omitted^  all  the  voyage  of  their  life 
Is  bound  in  shallows  and  miseries.'' 


Grip  and  Grit  9  5 

Nearly  everything  we  enjoy  is  the  result  of 
the  exercise  of  these  qualities  by  some  one. 
Look  on  the  fairest  portions  of  our  country  to- 
day and  tell  me  what  it  was  that  converted  the 
"forest  primeval"  into  these  gardens  of  beau- 
ty? Was  it  not  the  manly  Grip  and  Grit  of  the 
pioneers  whom  no  difficulties  could  daunt,  nor 
discouragements  dishearten?  When  would  re- 
ligious liberty  have  been  ours  if  Martin  Luther 
had  yielded  to  threats  at  the  Diet  of  Worms; 
or  if  the  Scottish  Covenanters  had  not  with 
heroic  stubbornness  faced  inhuman  cruelties 
and  suffered  death  rather  than  submit  to  what 
their  consciences  declared  to  be  wrong  ?  Do  you 
ask  by  what  means  numerous  states  formerly 
unfriendly  have  within  a  generation  been 
welded  together  into  the  German  Empire? 
Look  at  the  photograph  of  Bismarck  —  the 
man  of  blood  and  iron  —  and  there  is  your 
answer  written  in  the  lines  of  purpose  and  reso- 
lution so  clearly  that  "he  that  runs  may  read." 

Napoleon  said  that  "impossible"  was  a 
word  found  only  in  the  dictionary  of  fools,  and 
Lytton  makes  Richelieu  say,  "There's  no  such 
word  as  fail." 

The  military  genius  of  Grant  was  only  the 
genius  of  sticktoitiveness.  Did  Vicksburg  with- 
stand his  first  six  attempts  to  take  it  ?  Thenjike 


9  6  Sketches  and  Speeches 

the  Scottish  Bruce,  he  planned  a  seventh  and 
was  victorious.  Or  where  will  you  find  a  better 
example  of  courageous  perseverance  than  in 
his  famous  dispatch  when  he  proposed  to 
"Fight  it  out  on  this  line  if  it  takes  all  sum- 
mer"? 

If  we  turn  from  the  field  of  battle  to  Litera- 
ture, it  is,  with  a  few  brilliant  exceptions,  one 
long  record  of  early  defeats  crowned  with  suc- 
cess after  years  of  persistent  effort.  And  even 
one  of  the  exceptions  who  wrote  with  such  fa- 
cility that  his  popularity  was  immediate,  furn- 
ishes in  his  life  a  noble  example  of  the  qualities 
we  are  discussing. 

When  Walter  Scott  was  at  the  zenith  of  his 
power  and  prosperity  he  was  suddenly  in- 
volved in  ruin  by  the  failure  of  his  publisher 
with  whom  he  had  been  a  silent  partner.  Al- 
though the  amount  for  which  he  was  liable  ex- 
ceeded $500,000  no  thought  of  compromising 
with  his  creditors  seems  to  have  entered  his 
mind,  but  with  a  fortitude  seldom  equaled  he 
determined  to  wipe  out  the  debt  by  the  fruit  of 
his  pen.  With  wonderful  Grip  this  man  of  55 
took  hold  of  his  gigantic  undertaking,  rising  at 
five  every  morning,  and  working  12  hours  a 
day,  and  in  two  years  he  reduced  his  debt  by 
$200,000.  The  remaining  years  of  his  life  were 


Grip  and  Grit  97 

full  of  sorrow.  His  beloved  wife  died.  His  chil- 
dren were  scattered.  No  longer  were  his  ex- 
pectations high  and  his  spirits  buoyant.  There 
was  none  now  to  cheer  him  on,  and  the  debt  lay 
like  a  heavy  burden  upon  his  proud  spirit.  Still 
he  had  the  Grit  to  struggle  on,  publishing  vol- 
ume after  volume,  until  both  mind  and  body 
gave  way  under  the  strain  and  he  died  in  the 
attempt.  But  his  labors  accomplished  his  pur- 
pose although  he  did  not  live  to  see  it,  for  from 
the  proceeds  of  a  new  edition  of  his  works  the 
entire  debt  was  liquidated  shortly  after  his 
death. 

The  world  loves  the  name  of  Walter  Scott, 
and  never  wearies  of  the  music  of  his  verse,  or 
the  imagery  of  his  prose;  but  to  me  there  is 
nothing  in  any  of  his  books  so  inspiring  to 
noble  resolve,  so  enhancing  to  my  veneration 
for  his  name,  as  the  picture  of  the  man  himself 
with  the  stern  purpose  of  paying  his  honest 
debts  in  his  declining  years,  sitting  down  with 
nothing  but  his  pen  to  accomplish  his  end,  and 
never  relinquishing  his  task  until  released 
from  all  his  troubles  by  death.  That  was  "Grip 
and  Grit."  A  noble  purpose  once  formed  — 
then  victory  or  death.  These  same  qualities 
have  been  particularly  characteristic  of  great 
inventors.  The  world  soon  forgets  its  benefac- 


9  8  Sketches  and  Speeches 

tors  in  this  direction  and  is  content  to  succeed 
to  the  inheritance  they  bequeath,  while  the 
story  of  their  patient  labors  is  left  unwritten. 

The  commonest  articles  we  use  might  teach 
us  a  lesson  in  perseverance  if  we  knew  the 
patient  labor  required  for  their  production. 
Take,  for  example,  a  common  piece  of  pottery 
and  look  at  the  enameled  glaze  which  renders 
it  so  beautiful.  The  art  of  producing  that  glaze 
was  lost  for  centuries  when  Palissy,  the  potter, 
resolved  to  rediscover  it.  He  set  to  work  at 
once,  and  worked  for  many  years  making  al- 
most innumerable  experiments,  every  one  of 
which  was  a  failure;  but  he  kept  at  it  day  after 
day  until  his  family  were  reduced  to  poverty 
and  he  had  actually  taken  his  household  furni- 
ture to  feed  his  furnace  before  he  reached  the 
discovery  which  made  him  a  rich  man,  brought 
a  source  of  industry  and  wealth  to  his  country, 
and  placed  his  name  among  the  enduring  tri- 
umphs of  "Grip  and  Grit." 

When  we  consider  the  work  of  a  master  in 
painting,  sculpture  or  music,  we  think  general- 
ly of  the  wonderful  genius  there  displayed;  but 
in  art  as  in  all  else.  Grip  and  Grit  are  ever  es- 
sential to  the  success  of  genius.  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds  believed  that  excellence  in  art  may 
be  acquired  by  any  one,  and  says:  "Whoso- 


Grip  and  Grit  99 

ever  is  resolved  to  excel  in  painting,  or  indeed 
any  other  art,  must  bring  all  his  mind  to  bear 
upon  that  one  subject."  Michael  Angelo  be- 
lieved the  same  thing,  and  was  himself  a  tre- 
mendous worker,  who  used  to  go  to  bed  with 
his  clothes  on  that  he  might,  as  soon  as  he  was 
refreshed,  spring  up  again  to  his  work.  And  as 
for  music,  any  one  who  has  ever  taken  lessons 
in  it  knows  that  success  in  that  line  can  only 
come  as  a  result  of  determined  perseverance. 

Hayden,  speaking  of  his  art,  said,  "It  con- 
sists in  taking  up  a  subject  and  pursuing  it," 
and  Beethoven  declared  that,  "The  barriers 
are  not  erected  which  can  say  to  aspiring 
talents  and  industry,'thus  far  and  no  farther."' 

In  a  very  true  sense  morality  and  even  re- 
ligion are  matters  of  Grip  and  Grit.  To  live  mor- 
ally is  to  choose  promptly  between  right  and 
wrong,  and  to  have  the  courage  to  stand  stead- 
fastly for  the  right  against  all  the  temptations 
of  materialism,  sensuality  and  organized  evil; 
and  the  older  we  grow  the  more  clearly  do  we 
see  the  worthlessness  of  mere  passing  spiritual 
excitement  and  the  value  of  that  religion  the 
principles  of  which  are  exhibited  in  a  consist- 
ent life,  constantly  controlled  by  a  will-power 
which  will  not  yield  to  man  or  devil,  but  which 
has  learned  to  conform  to  the  will  of  God. 


I  oo  sketches  and  Speeches 

In  thus  urging  the  exercise  of  will-power  it 
is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that  the  mo- 
tive must  be  pure  and  the  object  worthy. 
Strength  of  will  is  powerful  alike  for  good  or 
evil.  Conscience  must  hold  the  reins  and  drive 
in  the  right  direction  or  will  power  will  only 
make  disaster  more  certain.  It  was  chiefly  by 
the  energy  of  his  will  that  Napoleon  carved 
out  his  immortal  career.  But  it  all  ended  with- 
out permanent  benefit  to  France  or  to  man- 
kind because  his  motive  was  mere  personal 
"glory"  and  his  object  imperial  power.  A  far 
nobler  character  was  that  of  Wellington,  the 
motto  of  whose  life  was  "duty,"  and  whose 
aim  was  ever  his  country's  good. 

Let  us  now  consider  our  subject  in  relation 
to  success  in  ordinary  life.  Success  in  life!  How 
the  heart  bounds  at  the  thought  of  what  the 
words  imply.  The  mind  of  youth  leaps  forward 
to  middle  age,  and  visions  rise  before  it  of  easy 
circumstances,  extensive  travels,  refinement, 
elegance,  perhaps  public  honors.  Success  is  the 
object  of  man's  pursuit  from  the  time  he  puts 
his  tiny  foot  on  his  mother-earth  until  he  is 
laid  to  rest  in  her  bosom.  It  is  the  inspiration  of 
effort,  the  purpose  of  perseverance.  Alas!  how 
often  it  is  never  more  than  a  dream  of  youth. 
In  days  gone  by  the  wiseacres  would  have  con- 


Grip  and  Grit  i  o  i 

suited  the  stars  as  the  best  means  of  ascertain- 
ing whether  blind  fortune  was  to  smile  or 
frown,  but  we  know  better  than  that,  we  know 
that  "man  is  his  own  star,"  and  that  fortune  is 
not  so  blind  as  many  who  seek  her. 

In  exceptional  cases  what  we  call  luck  seems 
to  bring  success,  but  as  a  rule  success  is  the  di- 
rect result  of  the  possession  and  practice  of 
Grip  and  Grit. 

Some  of  you  students  have  no  doubt  de- 
cided to  consecrate  your  lives  to  the  work  of 
the  ministry  or  teaching.  You  intend  to  forego 
the  possibilities  of  business  and  the  attractions 
of  wealth  and  devote  your  lives  directly  to  the 
service  of  God  and  your  fellow  men.  You  have 
chosen  nobly.  You  are  not  to  win  money  but 
men.  You  look  to  God  to  bless  your  labors  and 
crown  them  with  success.  With  all  reverence  I 
think  God's  blessing  will  depend  largely  upon 
the  exercise  on  your  part  of  the  same  qualities 
which  would  bring  you  success  in  any  worldly 
pursuit. 

A  readiness  to  find  opportunities  for  doing 
good,  and  persistent  work  with  well-defined 
objects  in  view  will  win  success.  But  God's 
blessing  cannot  follow  laziness,  lost  oppor- 
tunities, or  fickleness  of  purpose.  The  farmer  is 
dependent  upon  the  blessing  of  God  in  the  till- 


I  o  2  Sketches  and  Speeches 

ing  of  the  soil;  but  it  is  certain  that  God  never 
gives  bountiful  harvests  to  lazy  or  incompetent 
farmers.  And  in  sowing  the  good  seed  of  the 
gospel  in  men's  hearts  the  same  rule  is  pretty 
sure  to  prevail. 

Others  among  you  will  enter  the  professions 
of  law  and  medicine.  Success  to  you  will  mean 
reputation  rather  than  riches.  Your  triumphs 
will  be  the  accomplishments  of  your  profession- 
al skill.  Your  difficulties  will  not  be  small,  nor 
your  disappointments  few.  The  crowded  con- 
dition of  your  professions  will  probably  call 
for  all  the  Grit  you  can  command  while  you  are 
waiting  for  recognition.  But  if  you  keep  up 
your  courage  and  do  not  neglect  to  study  while 
you  wait,  your  opportunity  will  come  and  you 
will  be  ready. 

In  speaking  to  those  of  you  who  shall  enter 
commercial  life  I  feel  more  at  home.  Success  in 
your  case  can  be  measured  in  terms  of  money. 
I  should  consider  any  business  man  who  at  ^S 
has  an  annual  income  of  ^5,000  as  fairly  suc- 
cessful. From  that  up  to  millions  is  success  in 
different  degrees.  I  make  no  apology  for  speak- 
ing of  success  in  terms  of  money.  Money  is  the 
common  measure  of  success  in  this  age.  It  is 
also  largely  the  measure  of  power.  All  good 
works  depend  upon  it.  It  is  through  the  giv- 


Grip  and  Grit  103 

ing  of  money  only  that  most  of  us  are  enabled 
to  do  anything  for  the  good  of  mankind.  Its 
acquisition,  therefore,  within  proper  bounds, 
is  a  perfectly  legitimate  object  to  strive  for, 
and  all  business  is  for  that  purpose. 

What  are  the  educational  qualifications 
which  you  will  find  most  helpful  in  entering 
upon  a  business  life? 

First:  To  be  able  to  write  a  good,  legible 
hand;  to  make  good  figures,  and  to  place  them 
correctly  —  the  units  below  the  units,  the  tens 
below  the  tens,  and  so  on. 

Second:  To  be  able  to  add,  subtract  and 
multiply  rapidly  and  accurately,  and 

Third:  To  be  able  to  express  yourself  clearly, 
briefly,  and  grammatically  in  a  letter,  and  to 
spell  the  words  correctly.  Very  simple  accom- 
plishments, you  say !  Yes,  and  very  rare.  I  have 
taken  many  young  men  into  business  in  this 
country  and  I  can  scarcely  recall  one  who  had 
these  accomplishments.  Many  of  them  were 
graduates  of  the  high  schools,  and,  in  my  opin- 
ion, there  is  something  wrong  with  a  school 
education  which  includes  physiology,  myth- 
ology, and  biology  and  neglects  the  practical 
things  I  have  mentioned.  The  question  is  often 
asked  whether  a  young  man  entering  business 
life  is  helped  or  handicapped   by  a  college 


I  04  Sketches  and  Speeches 

course.  I  think  that  while  much  of  what  is 
learned  at  college  is  of  no  practical  use  in  busi- 
ness, the  mental  training  gained  is  of  inesti- 
mable value.  I  hope  the  day  is  coming  when 
there  shall  be  more  specialization  in  education 
— when  the  man  who  is  to  manufacture  soap  will 
have  a  different  curriculum  from  the  one  who 
is  to  make  sermons,  and  the  one  who  is  to  fol- 
low finance  will  not  be  required  to  pass  an  ex- 
amination in  philology. 

With  regard  to  the  choice  of  a  business 
natural  inclinations  should  be  followed  if  pos- 
sible. If  these  are  not  pronounced  I  would  give 
the  preference  to  a  line  of  business  in  which, 
after  it  has  been  mastered,  it  is  possible  to 
start  in  a  small  way  on  one's  own  account  with 
unlimited  possibilities  of  growth.  Success  in 
railroading  or  banking,  for  instance,  means 
only  a  good  salary,  while  the  profits  go  to  the 
shareholders. 

Success  in  merchandising  or  manufacturing 
of  any  kind  means  that  the  profits  go  directly 
into  your  own  pocket.  Do  not  seek  the  easiest 
employment.  The  young  man  who  goes  around 
looking  for  "a  soft  place"  has  got  one  already 
—  under  his  hat.  It  is  difficulty  —  not  facility, 
which  trains  a  fellow  and  makes  a  man  of  him. 
With  your  first  connection  with  any  business 


Grip  and  Grit  105 

comes  your  first  great  opportunity.  Get  in- 
terested at  once  in  your  business.  Let  it  get  a 
grip  of  you  so  that  you  cannot  rest  content 
until  you  understand  it.  Ask  questions,  and  if 
there  are  books  connected  with  the  business 
read  them.  You  often  hear  it  said,  "There  is 
always  room  at  the  top."  That  is  true.  Mr. 
Schwab  said  the  other  day  that  the  great  steel 
corporation  had  been  looking  for  three  weeks 
for  a  competent  mill  superintendent  without 
finding  one.  I  am  told  it  is  the  same  in  other 
lines.  As  for  banking,  I  have  not  known  the 
time  for  years  when  there  were  not  some  large 
banks  looking  everywhere  for  a  capable  man- 
ager. Why  is  this  ?  Simply  because  there  is  room 
further  down  the  ladder.  Clerks  show  a  marvel- 
ous amount  of  mediocrity,  incompetency,  and 
want  of  grasp.  Managers  are  being  constantly 
amazed  at  the  ignorance  of  things  which  should 
have  been  learned  the  first  year  displayed  by 
clerks  who  have  been  ten  or  fifteen  years  in 
their  employ. 

Not  long  ago  a  bank  clerk  of  fifteen  years' 
experience  had  occasion  to  go  to  the  president 
and  ask  for  a  small  loan.  The  circumstances 
warranted  the  loan  and  the  president,  consent- 
ing to  it,  handed  the  clerk  a  printed  note-form 
to  fill  up  for  the  amount.  The  clerk  handed  it 


I  o6  Sketches  and  Speeches 

back  politely  requesting  the  president  to  fill 
it  up  as  he,  the  clerk,  did  not  know  how.  You 
see  he  had  been  keeping  books  in  the  bank  and 
could  not  be  expected  to  know  anything  about 
notes !  I  have  known  clerks  to  work  for  years  in 
the  same  office  within  six  feet  of  each  other  and 
know  no  more  about  each  other's  work  than  if 
they  had  never  been  within  six  miles  of  each 
other.  The  great  majority  are  content  to  do 
their  allotted  duties  by  rote  —  to  do  them  ex- 
actly as  their  predecessors  did,  without 
thought,  without  suggestion  of  improvement, 
without  understanding  the  principles  which 
underlie  their  duties,  or  caring  to  know  more 
than  just  enough  to  keep  their  job.  How  can 
you  elevate  such  men?  Nothing  short  of  dyna- 
mite would  do  it. 

The  young  man  who  succeeds  is  the  oppo- 
site of  all  that.  He  usually  begins  life  with 
nothing.  That  is  the  best  way  to  begin.  The 
man  who  saves  his  first  capital  out  of  wages 
through  the  years  is  likely  to  be  the  most  care- 
ful in  handling  it,  and  the  most  successful  in 
increasing  it.  Having  made  a  beginning  he  sets 
a  definite  object  before  his  mind  and  resolves 
to  become  an  expert  in  his  business.  He  has  the 
capacity  to  see  that  this  is  the  day  of  the  spe- 
cialist—  that  the  best  judge  of  carpets,  for  ex- 


Grip  and  Grit  107 

ample,  commands  more  salary  than  the  Chief 
Justice  of  the  United  States.  He  resolves  to 
persevere,  and  he  does  persevere  in  his  busi- 
ness until  no  one  knows  more  about  it  in  all  its 
details  than  he.  He  feels  competition  but  he 
pays  no  attention  to  it.  He  sees  one  shoot  past 
him  by  dishonest  means,  but  he  knows  that 
such  apparent  success  is  really  failure.  He  sees 
others  suddenly  gain  a  fortune  by  lucky  specu- 
lation, but  he  lives  long  enough  to  see  nearly  all 
of  them  lose  it  again  by  the  same  easy  way.  He 
sticks  faithfully  to  his  work,  never  shirking  re- 
sponsibility, but  welcoming  it  as  an  opportu- 
nity—  and  gradually  there  develops  in  him  that 
self-reliance,  that  judgment  of  men  and  enter- 
prises; that  clear-minded  way  of  seeing  things 
as  they  are  and  not  as  they  are  represented, 
that  courage,  faith,  and  far-sightedness  which 
all  go  to  make  up  the  successful  business  man. 
Perhaps  I  have  spoken  too  much  of  "Grip 
and  Grit"  as  pertaining  to  man;  but  I  believe 
that  woman,  as  a  rule,  possesses  these  quali- 
ties in  greater  measure  than  man.  She  has  at 
least  more  need  of  them  in  her  life.  There  is  so 
much  against  her  if  she  has  to  earn  her  own 
living.  Her  wages  are  smaller  than  man's  even 
for  similar  work,  and  the  battle  of  life  is  harder 
for  her  all  along  the  line.  Success  in  business  to 


I  o  8  Sketches  and  Speeches 

her  is  usually  of  a  limited  kind,  but  so  far  as  it 
goes  it  will  demand  the  same  qualities  which 
are  demanded  of  men.  For  you  young  lady 
students  I  am  old-fashioned  enough  to  say  that 
the  best  success  in  life  for  you  is  to  marry  a 
successful  young  man.  To  make  a  happy  home 
is  the  grandest  success  in  life.  And  if  you  will 
allow  me  I  would  suggest  that  you  let  him  ex- 
hibit some  of  his  Grit  as  a  wooer  before  you 
surrender.  Shakespeare  knew  a  thing  or  two 
and  he  says:  "Too  light  winning  makes  the 
prize  light."  There  are  two  kinds  of  girls  that 
have  small  chance  of  making  a  success  in  life 
by  marrying  the  right  kind  of  man  —  the  af- 
fected girl,  and  the  cheaply-won  girl!  And  the 
strange  thing  is,  that  these  two  kinds  always 
imagine  themselves  attractive,  and  wonder 
what  the  young  men  see  in  their  more  reserved 
and  natural  friends.  But  I  am  persuaded  better 
things  of  you,  and  will  only  add  that  whatever 
be  your  lot  in  life  I  hope  it  will  be  brightened 
by  many  joys  and  saddened  by  few  sorrows. 

I  am  trying  to-day  to  bring  you  a  simple 
message  from  the  business  world.  It  is  not  new 
—  it  is  as  old  as  commercial  life.  You  cannot  al- 
ways make  opportunities,  but  you  can  always 
make  the  most  of  them  when  they  come.  And 
come  they  surely  will  if  you  are  ready  for  them. 


Grip  and  Grit  1 09 

That  remarkable  man,  the  late  Senator  In- 
galls  of  Kansas,  has  put  this  truth  beautifully 
in  his  personification  of  "Opportunity": 

^^ Master  of  human  destinies  am  I; 
<    FamCy  love,  and  fortune  on  my  footsteps  wait. 
Cities  and  fields  I  walk;  I  penetrate 
Deserts  and  seas  remote,  and  passing  by 
Hovel  and  mart  and  palace,  soon  or  late 
I  knock  unbidden  once  at  every  gate. 
If  sleeping,  wake;  if  feasting,  rise  before 
1  turn  away.  It  is  the  hour  of  fate. 
And  they  who  follow  me  reach  every  state 
Mortals  desire,  and  conquer  every  foe 
Save  death;  but  those  who  doubt  or  hesitate. 
Condemned  to  failure,  penury  and  woe. 
Seek  me  in  vain  and  uselessly  implore, 
I  answer  not  and  I  return  no  more.'' 

And  it  is  equally  true  that  the  road  which 
ends  in  success  is  usually  long,  hard,  and  full  of 
set-backs,  calling  for  the  exercise  of  patience 
and  resolution. 

But  I  would  not  have  you  think  that  I  look 
upon  outward  success  as  the  greatest  thing. 
Character  is  more  important  than  position.  A 
man  is  poor  indeed  who  gains  wealth  at  the  ex- 
pense of  his  own  self-respect.  A  man  is  rich,  in- 


1 1  o  sketches  and  Speeches 

deed,  whatever  else  he  lacks,  if  he  possesses 
nobility  of  character.  Better  to  die  a  pauper  in 
purse  than  a  pauper  in  soul.  Better  fail  to  get 
money  than  allow  money  to  get  you.  To  reach 
old  age  possessed  only  of  money  and  a  desire 
to  increase  it  is  not  success  in  life.  It  is  a  sad 
and  terrible  failure.  Let  us  rejoice,  however, 
that  a  very  different  spirit  is  manifesting  it- 
self more  and  more  among  successful  men.  For 
the  past  year  a  million  dollars  a  week  has  been 
given  in  this  country  to  educational  and  phil- 
anthropic schemes,  exclusive  of  what  is  con- 
tributed to  the  support  of  the  church.  While 
the  altruistic  spirit  is  thus  growing  among  suc- 
cessful men,  I  see  no  cause  for  a  pessimistic 
view  of  our  commercial  age. 

On  a  dark  night  I  once  sat  by  a  river  across 
which  an  electric  arc  lamp  shot  a  shaft  of  light. 
As  the  hurrying  waters  came  out  of  the  dark- 
ness, were  visible  for  a  moment,  and  passed  on 
into  the  night,  I  thought  of  the  flowing  gen- 
erations of  humanity  which  come  out  of  the 
unknown,  cross  the  narrow  space  of  life  and 
pass  on  to  an  unrevealed  eternity.  As  they  pass 
they  ask  the  same  profound  questions: 

"Whence  come  we?"  "What  do  we  here?" 
"Whither  do  we  go?"  The  same  problems  of 
life,  death  and  destiny  continue  to  harass  the 


Grip  and  Grit  1 1 1 

mind  and  baffle  the  understanding  of  each 
succeeding  age.  There  is  much  we  cannot 
know.  But  in  our  perplexity  we  can  turn  to  the 
practical  question,  "How  can  we  make  the 
most  of  life  as  we  find  it?"  There  is  plenty  of 
light  on  this  question  to  illumine  the  path  for 
us.  It  comes  from  the  lives  of  all  the  great  and 
good  who  have  left  their  "foot-prints  on  the 
sands  of  time."  It  comes  above  all  from  Him 
who  scarcely  lifted  a  corner  of  the  veil  from 
the  unknown,  but  who  went  about  continually 
doing  good;  who  was  so  busy  that  He  often 
went  without  sleep,  and  had  not  time  to  eat; 
who  never  missed  an  opportunity  to  help,  and 
whose  whole  life  was  filled  with  the  holy  pur- 
pose of  self-sacrifice  for  mankind. 

The  life  of  a  successful  business  man,  though 
devoted  mainly  to  making  money,  need  not  be 
sordid.  He,  too,  may  have  his  ideal.  Let  me 

suggest  one. 

*      *      * 

^0  be  honesty  making  money  honestly  or  not  at 
all 

To  be  fair  ^  refusing  to  injure  a  competitor. 

To  be  just ^  remembering  that  all  must  live. 

To  be  kindy  regarding  employes  as  something 
more  than  an  investment. 


112  Sketches  and  Speeches 

'To  be  charitable^  giving  liberally  for  the  wp- 
raisi77g  of  humanity. 

To  be  healthy y  exercising  as  a  duty. 

To  be  sociable^  having  a  side  to  friends  not 
known  to  all. 

To  be  lovable^  being  more  to  wife  and  family 
than  a  means  of  support. 

To  be  sympathetic,  fearing  littleness  of  soul 
more  than  littleness  of  fortune. 

To  be  broad y  accumulating  resources  higher 
than  the  material;  above  all,  to  be  true  to  one's 
self,  condoning  nothing  in  self  which  is  to  be  con- 
demned in  others. 


SPEECHES    II 

THE  NEW  FEDERAL 
HE  SERVE  BANKS 

Stenographic  Report  of  Address 

Delivered  Before 

Detroit  Association  of  Credit  Men,  Tuesday  Evening 

January  26,  1915 

Mr.  President^  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Detroit 

Association  of  Credit  Men: 

i^^i^^(M^'^^  WISH  to  thank  you  very  sincerely 
^^g^g^j^S^  for  the  honor  you  have  done 
5#3     T     5|^  me  in  asking  me  to  come  to  your 


great  city,  and  m  meetmg  me 

^BdSSI^®  ^^^^  ^^^^  ^  splendid  body  of 
men  as  I  see  before  me  to-night. 
I  do  not  wish,  however,  to  take  that  honor  too 
seriously,  in  case  something  happens  to  me 
similar  to  that  which  happened  to  a  fellow 
countryman  of  mine. 

It  was  related  of  the  late  Sir  James  Simpson, 
the  discoverer  of  chloroform,  a  great  physician 

113 


114  Sketches  and  Speeches 

and  medical  professor  of  Edinburgh  Universi- 
ty, that  in  recognition  of  his  services  to  hu- 
manity, Queen  Victoria  made  him  Physician- 
in-Ordinary  to  the  Queen.  Sir  James  was  very 
much  pleased,  and  the  next  morning  with  great 
dignity  and  fine  solemnity,  he  announced  to 
his  class  of  medical  students  the  great  honor 
that  had  been  conferred  upon  him,  that  he  had 
been  made  Physician-in-Ordinary  to  the  Queen 
and  the  class  promptly  struck  up  "God  Save 
the  Queen." 

Now,  gentlemen,  it  may  seem  like  carrying 
coals  to  Newcastle  to  address  the  Credit 
Men's  Association  on  any  financial  subject,  be- 
cause whenever  we  begin  to  talk  of  anything 
financial  we  at  once  get  into  the  realm  of  credit. 
The  life  blood  of  modern  business  is  no  longer 
gold;  it  is  credit.  Credit  starts  enterprises, 
moves  wheels,  builds  railroads,  wages  war, 
makes  civilization.  You  gentlemen  deal  in 
credit,  and  to  you  it  is  only  the  means  —  to 
most  of  you,  at  least  —  it  is  only  the  means  by 
which  people  buy  and  buy,  and  pay  by-an-by. 
But,  gentlemen,  it  is  a  great  deal  more  than 
that.  It  is  a  kind  of  element,  closely  allied  to 
water,  in  which  modern  business  lives,  moves 
and  has  its  being.  In  all  business,  some  ninety- 
five  per  cent  of  transactions  are  performed  by 


Federal  I^eserve  Banks 


I  I 


credit,  and  in  a  highly  developed  community, 
such  as  a  great  city  in  Europe,  ninety-nine  per 
cent  involves  credit. 

You  tell  me,  for  example,  that  the  banks  in 
New  York  have  two  billion  of  deposits  and 
some  one  says,  "What  a  lot  of  money!"  Noth- 
ing of  the  sort.  Bank  deposits  are  not  money. 
Bank  deposits  are  on  the  other  side  of  the  led- 
ger. The  money  in  the  bank  is  an  asset.  The 
deposits  of  the  bank  are  its  liabilities.  Material- 
ly, they  are  nothing  on  earth  but  figures  on  a 
ledger  —  a  mere  memorandum  of  how  much 
you  stand  to  lose  when  the  bank  fails! 

Again  you  tell  me  that  the  banks  in  this 
country  have  issued  $750,000,000  of  currency, 
and  again  you  say,  "What  a  lot  of  money!" 
And  again  I  say,  "No,  not  quite!" 

Take  a  bill  out  of  your  pocket  and  read  it. 
It  says  such  and  such  a  bank  promises  to  pay 
bearer  five  dollars,  or  ten  dollars.  That  is  not 
money.  It  is  a  promise  to  pay  money.  It  is  a 
credit  instrument.  Yes,  it  is  secured  by  the 
bonds  of  the  United  States  Government,  but 
they  are  another  form  of  credit,  and  what  you 
call  money  is  largely  credit,  either  credit  of  the 
Government,  or  the  credit  of  the  bank  backed 
up  by  the  credit  of  the  Government.  Gold  coin 
is  the  only  unqualified  money. 


1 1  6  Sketches  and  Speeches 

All  the  stocks  and  bonds,  on  all  the  stock  ex- 
changes of  the  world,  all  the  great  national 
debts  that  are  being  increased  so  rapidly  these 
days,  all  the  tremendous  international  bal- 
ances —  one  way  or  the  other  —  all  the  ac- 
counts and  bills  receivable  or  payable  on  all 
the  ledgers  in  all  the  world,  and  a  very  large 
part  of  what  is  called  *'money"  in  the  world, 
are  only  various  forms  and  expressions  of  this 
wonderful  modern  thing*  that  we  call  Credit. 
The  whole  world  is  bound  together  by  invisible 
though  powerful  mutual  ties,  by  this  great 
modern  system. 

For  example.  A  man  came  into  my  office  a 
few  years  ago,  whom  I  knew,  looking  rather 
pale  and  disturbed.  He  said  to  me,  "Mr.  For- 
gan,  you  probably  don't  know  it,  but  I  have  a 
bad  boy.  I  haven't  heard  from  him  for  seven 
years.  I  didn't  know  to-day  whether  he  was 
alive  or  dead,  but  I  have  just  received  a  letter, 
and  he  is  in  a  little  town  in  the  middle  of  Af- 
rica, and  he  is  sick."  Like  the  prodigal  son  of 
old,  being  in  a  far  country  and  sick,  he  had 
thought  of  his  father  and  had  written  for  help, 
and  the  father,  with  trembling  lips,  asked  me 
how  soon  we  could  convey  the  help  of  money 
to  that  boy.  I  said,  "Is  there  a  bank  there?" 
He  said,  "Yes,  there  is  a  branch  of  an  English 


Federal  I^eserve  Banks         117 

bank  there."  I  said,  "We  will  pay  it  to  him 
this  afternoon."  x^nd  we  did. 

That  is  an  illustration  of  the  wonderful 
modern  system  of  credit  —  of  the  ties  that,  un- 
fortunately, are  being  snapped  these  days  by 
the  terrible  European  war. 

You  gentlemen  are  the  physicians  and  sur- 
geons of  the  financial  world.  You  direct  this 
life  blood  of  modern  business.  You  see  that  it 
goes  in  the  proper  channel,  and  that  it  does 
not  go  in  a  bad  direction,  and  I  —  I  am  akin 
to  you,  because  I  am  a  banker,  for  the  banks 
are  the  heart  from  which  this  great  life  blood 
flows. 

Did  you  ever  think  of  the  meaning  of  the 
word"credit"?  ItcomesfromtheLatin"credo," 
meaning  "I  believe."  So  every  transaction  of 
credit  is  based  upon  faith — faith  in  the  charac- 
ter and  integrity  of  another  man,  or  another  set 
of  men;  therefore  the  whole  structure  of  mod- 
ern credit  is  based  upon  the  foundation  of 
character,  and  no  business  can  permanently 
endure  that  is  founded  on  any  other  founda- 
tion. 

Now,  up  to  a  few  months  ago,  this  country 
had  what  Andrew  Carnegie  called  the  "worst 
banking  system  in  the  world,"  and,  after  hav- 
ing done  business  in  three  different  countries 


1 1  8  Sketches  and  Speeches 

myself,  I  was  pretty  nearly  ready  to  agree  with 
my  fellow  countryman,  Andrew  —  in  that,  if 
not  in  much  else.  Mark  you,  I  did  not  say  that 
the  banks  were  the  worst  in  the  world.  I  think 
the  American  banks  are  the  best  in  the  world. 
The  American  banks  have  the  confidence  of  the 
communities  which  they  serve,  and  the  Ameri- 
can banker  is,  almost  without  exception,  in 
these  various  communities  —  big  and  small  — 
one  of  the  most  respected  and  trusted  citizens 
of  the  place.  The  banks  are  all  right.  It  is  the 
system,  or  the  relation  of  one  bank  to  all  the 
others,  that  is  wrong.  Indeed,  it  would  be  more 
correct  to  say  that  until  recently  there  was  no 
system,  for  when  financial  clouds  appeared  in 
the  sky,  we  found  our  twenty-five  thousand 
banks  separating  into  twenty-five  thousand 
units,  each  one  standing  for  and  by  itself,  find- 
ing it  almost  impossible  to  get  help,  from  any- 
one else,  and  equally  impossible  to  give  assist- 
ance to  anyone  else. 

The  great  trouble  was  that  without  a  sys- 
tem that  related  all  the  banks  to  each  other, 
we  had  no  means  of  taking  care  of  panicky 
conditions,  and  so  we  had  what  I  considered 
for  many  years  —  and  I  suppose  you  did  — 
nothing  short  of  a  national  disgrace,  namely, 
that  this  country,  blessed  by  God  with  the 


Federal  Reserve  Banks         119 

greatest  natural  resources  of  any  country  In 
the  world,  containing,  I  believe,  the  ablest 
business  men  in  the  world,  holding  in  our  hands 
as  much  gold  —  the  only  real,  unqualified 
money  —  as  any  three  or  four  of  the  great 
commercial  nations  of  the  earth  combined;  I 
say  it  was  nothing  less  than  a  national  disgrace 
that  every  few  years  these  good  banks  had  to 
suspend  cash  payments. 

In  1907,  which  is  not  so  very  long  ago,  all 
these  good  banks,  practically,  in  this  country, 
had  suspended.  I  had  just  started  a  bank.  It 
was  only  a  few  months  old.  There  was  not  an 
asset  in  that  bank  that  I  would  have  sold  for 
ninety-nine  and  three-quarter  cents  on  the 
dollar  —  not  then;  I  had  not  had  time  to  get 
Into  any  trouble.  But  do  you  think  that  made 
any  difference?  It  made  no  difference  what- 
ever. I,  with  my  new  bank,  had  to  suspend, 
just  the  same  as  all  the  others.  It  was  not  a 
question  of  banks;  it  was  a  question  of  system. 

We  went  on  many  years  like  that.  We  did 
nothing  during  the  panic,  and  we  forgot  it 
afterwards.  We  had  about  half  a  dozen  panics 
within  the  memory  of  living  man,  always 
sharply  cut  off  by  our  national  borders. 

We  went  on  that  way  like  the  farmer,  the 
hole  in  whose  barn  roof  was  never  mended  be- 


I  2  o  Sketches  and  Speeches 

cause  when  it  was  raining  he  couldn't  mend  it, 
and  when  it  was  dry  again,  it  didn't  need  mend- 
ing, or  like  the  Irish  servant  girl  who  couldn't 
get  married,  because  when  Pat  was  drunk  she 
wouldn't  marry  him,  and  w^hen  Pat  was  sober, 
he  wouldn't  marry  her. 

And  so  we  went  along.  It  is  true  that  the 
bankers  advocated  reform,  but  while  the  legis- 
latures passed  hundreds  and  even  thousands  of 
laws  against  the  poor  railroads,  they  would  not 
even  mend  one  little  law  for  the  poor  bankers, 
and  so  we  went  along  until  some  five  years  ago, 
when  the  Republicans  —  then  in  power  —  ap- 
pointed what  was  known  as  the  National 
Monetary  Commission.  That  Commission  was 
practically  told  to  go  abroad,  and  find  out 
what  the  other  banking  systems  of  the  world 
had  and  we  lacked,  that  enabled  them  to  take 
care  of  panicky  conditions  without  suspension, 
whereas  when  we  have  them,  everything  we  do 
seems  to  hurry  the  bursting  of  the  cloud  over 
our  heads.  Well,  they  went  abroad  and  they 
studied  the  situation,  and  they  came  back  and 
consulted  with  the  best  financial  minds  in  this 
country,  and,  after  publishing  fourteen  vol- 
umes of  books  —  that  would  take  about  as 
long  as  that  (indicating)  on  your  shelf —  they 
exhausted  the  subject. 


Federal  Bfiserve  Banks         i  2  i 

Now  what  did  they  tell  us?  They  told  us 
something  like  this.  Suppose  this  country  had 
been  the  only  country  in  modern  times  suffer- 
ing from  periodical  epidemics  of  smallpox,  and 
a  lot  of  doctors  went  abroad  to  find  out  why 
the  other  countries  did  not  have  these  epi- 
demics, and  what  they  did  to  prevent  them. 
The  authorities  over  there  said,  "Why  don't 
you  adopt  vaccination?  If  you  adopt  it  you 
will  have  no  more  epidemics  of  smallpox.'" 

They  came  back  and  told  us  there  were  sev- 
eral things  we  lacked  that  all  other  great 
countries  had,  and  if  we  adopted  them  we 
would  have  no  more  suspension.  Not  "no  more 
panics" —  we  may  have  httle  incipient  panics 
—  but  no  more  panics  leading  to  general  sus- 
pension. 

What  were  these  things,  briefly?  First,  they 
said,  you  have  no  elasticity  in  your  currency. 
Well,  I  don't  need  to  illustrate  that  to  you 
gentlemen.  You  are  all  old  enough  to  remem- 
ber 1907.  Those  of  you  who  were  in  the  bank- 
ing business  will  remember  how  you  paid  ^107 
or  $108  or  1 1 09  for  a  government  bond,  sent  it 
on  to  Washington,  and  in  due  course  got  back 
a  hundred  dollars.  There  was  great  expansion 
in  that!  And  those  of  you  who  were  not  in  the 
banking  business   will   remember    the  "milk 


12  2  Sketches  and  Speeches 

tickets"  for  one,  two,  three,  four  and  five  dol- 
lars, issued  by  the  clearing  houses  all  over  the 
country,  because  our  national  currency  could 
not  be  increased  in  volume  when  it  was  needed. 

Another  thing,  in  our  system,  until  lately,  a 
gold  dollar  never  stood  for  more  than  a  dollar. 
Wherever  it  was,  it  was  only  a  dollar.  Now  in 
Germany,  for  instance,  a  gold  dollar  in  the 
bank  stood  for  three  paper  dollars,  because  the 
Reichsbank  can  issue  as  much  paper  dollar 
currency  as  it  likes,  so  long  as  it  has  thirty- 
three  and  a  third  per  cent  gold  reserve  against 
it  — just  the  same  as  we  bankers  have  to  keep 
certain  reserves  against  our  deposit  liabilities. 

Well,  after  a  great  deal  of  trouble,  the  Dem- 
ocrats passed  the  Federal  Reserve  Act.  I  want 
to  give  them  credit  for  it.  I  am  not  a  Demo- 
crat, but  I  don't  forget  that  while  the  Republi- 
cans sent  that  great  Commission  abroad,  they 
did  nothing  after  it  got  home,  but  ignore  its 
fourteen  volumes;  and  all  credit  to  the  Demo- 
crats for  at  least  putting  something  over! 

Now,  having  given  them  that  credit,  I  want 
to  tell  you  gentlemen  that  most  of  what  is 
good  in  their  bill  they  took  from  the  Republi- 
can Monetary  Commission's  Report. 

They  met  this  first  requirement,  elasticity 
of  currency,  by  providing  that  the  new  Federal 


Federal  I(e serve  Banks         123 

Reserve  Banks  may  issue  all  the  currency  they 
need,  so  long  as  that  currency  is  secured  by 
one  hundred  per  cent  commercial  paper  — 
short  time  paper,  the  best  security  for  the  pur- 
pose in  the  world  —  and  so  long  as  they  have 
at  least  forty  per  cent  gold  reserve;  exactly 
in  the  same  way  as  Germany  does.  That  forty 
per  cent  gold  reserve  may  get  down  gradually 
to  thirty-two  and  a  half  per  cent,  by  the  pay- 
ment of  an  increasing  tax.  That  is  a  detail. 
They  have  thus  provided  for  that  first  neces- 
sity, that  first  requisite  of  a  good  banking  sys- 
tem —  an  elastic  volume  of  currency  that  will 
meet  the  varying  needs  of  currency  in  the  vari- 
ous portions  of  the  country  at  the  various  sea- 
sons. 

The  second  thing  we  were  told  we  lacked  was 
mobilization  of  reserves.  Now  what  do  we 
mean  by  that.^  Just  what  we  mean  when  we 
talk,  as  we  do  so  often  nowadays,  in  military 
terms.  Suppose  this  country  had  a  lot  of  re- 
serves of  soldiers  for  defense,  and  Detroit  had 
one  hundred  thousand,  and  Chicago  had  four 
hundred  thousand,  and  Podunk  had  one  thou- 
sand men  in  the  reserves.  And  suppose  we  were 
attacked  somewhere,  and  instead  of  these  re- 
serves mobilizing  and  meeting  the  enemy 
wherever  he  might  be,  Podunk  commences  to 


12  4  sketches  and  Speeches 

get  a  few  men  for  the  protection  of  Podunk  by 
calling  them  from  Detroit  and  Chicago,  and 
Detroit  tries  to  get  some  men  by  calling  them 
from  Chicago.  And  what  about  Chicago?  Why 
we  would  have  no  reserves  left.  It  would  not 
be  a  reserve  unless  they  could  coalesce. 

Now  that  is  exactly  the  situation  we  were  in. 
Whenever  we  had  trouble,  our  reserves  scat- 
tered. Any  trouble  that  is  national  in  char- 
acter, that  is  big  enough  to  frighten  all  the 
banks,  must  happen  in  a  center.  When  it  does 
happen,  that  is  the  time  the  center  needs  more 
gold,  more  reserves;  and,  under  our  old  system, 
that  was  the  time  when  every  bank  in  this 
country  commenced  to  try  to  withdraw  their 
reserves  from  the  center. 

Now  what  actually  led  to  suspension  was 
this:  It  was  the  relations  between  the  city 
banks  and  the  country  banks.  The  country 
bankers  were  responsible  for  suspension,  as  I 
have  often  told  them,  and  I  did  not  say  it  in  a 
blameworthy  way,  because  if  I  were  a  country 
banker,  or  you  were  a  country  banker,  under 
the  old  system,  we  would  act  just  as  they  did. 

What  happened  under  the  old  law,  which  is 
now  being  changed  by  the  Federal  Reserve 
Act?  We  will  say  that  the  First  National  Bank 
of  Peoria,  has  one  hundred  fifty  thousand  dol- 


Federal  B^eserve  Banks         v  2  5 

lars  reserves  required  by  law.  Of  that,  three- 
fifths,  or  ninety  thousand  dollars  might  be  kept 
with  the  First  National  Bank  of  Chicago,  or 
any  other  national  bank  in  a  central  reserve 
city,  and  two-fifths,  or  sixty  thousand  dollars, 
had  to  be  kept  in  the  First  National  Bank  of 
Peoria's  own  safe.  Now  some  fine  morning  the 
President  of  the  First  National  Bank  of  Peoria, 
picks  up  his  paper  and  he  sees  that  something 
terrible  has  happened  in  Chicago  —  some 
Scotchman  running  a  big  bank  there  has  va- 
moosed, or  something  else  equally  unexpected 
and  unheard  of,  has  happened.  So  down  he 
goes  in  a  hurry  to  the  bank,  and  he  says,  "Mr. 
Cashier,  how  much  money  have  we  in  Chicago 
this  morning?"  "Ninety  thousand  dollars,"  is 
the  answer.  "How  much  in  the  safe?"  "Sixty 
thousand  dollars." 

"Well,  I  don't  like  the  looks  of  things  in 
Chicago  this  morning.  I  don't  want  to  seem 
afraid;  I  don't  want  to  discommode  Chicago, 
but  I  think  you  had  better  telegraph  for  twenty 
thousand  dollars." 

Now,  if  the  First  National  Bank  of  Chicago 
had  ninety  thousand  in  cash  of  the  Peoria 
bank's  lying  in  its  safe,  marked  "property  of 
the  First  National  Bank  of  Peoria,"  it  would  be 
a  very  simple  matter  to  send  the  twenty  thou- 


12  6  sketches  and  Speeches 

sand  dollars,  and  they  would  have  seventy 
thousand  left;  but  you  know  very  well  that  is 
not  what  the  First  National  Bank  has.  It  has 
a  credit  on  its  books  to  the  First  National  Bank 
of  Peoria  of  ninety  thousand  dollars,  against 
which  the  Chicago  Bank  has  by  law  to  keep  a 
reserve  of  just  about  twenty  thousand  dollars, 
so  when  this  telegram  comes  in  and  says,  "Send 
Peoria  twenty  thousand  dollars,"  and  they 
send  it,  they  have  parted  in  Chicago  with  all 
the  reserve  that  was  held  against  the  Peoria 
account,  and  they  are  left  with  a  credit  to 
Peoria  of  seventy  thousand  dollars,  against 
which  they  now  have  no  reserve. 

That  which  happens  in  Peoria,  happens  in 
Springfield,  and  towns  all  around,  and  so, 
when  things  happen  like  that,  in  one  short 
week  the  reserves  in  the  centers  are  depleted 
by  one-half,  and  before  they  lose  the  other  half 
they  go  on  a  clearing  house  basis,  and  stop 
payment. 

The  Federal  Reserve  Banks  have  met  that 
situation  by  causing  all  the  member-banks 
gradually  —  in  the  course  of  three  years  —  to 
put  all  the  reserves  the  law  requires  them  to 
carry,  (except  those  that  are  in  their  own 
safes)  in  the  Federal  Reserve  Banks.  Before, 
we  were  just  as  if  a  fire  law  of  the  City  of  De- 


Federal  I^e serve  Banks         127 

troit  required  each  citizen  to  have  one  bucket 
of  water  as  a  protection  against  fire,  instead  of 
having  a  reservoir  containing  all  the  water, 
with  pipes  in  every  direction  capable  of  carry- 
ing the  force  of  all  the  water  to  a  desired  spot. 
Now,  thanks  to  this  Federal  Reserve  Act,  we 
have  got  the  reservoir,  and  we  have  begun  to 
fill  it. 

The  third  thing,  gentlemen,  we  were  told 
we  lacked,  was  liquidity  of  bank  assets.  In  all 
other  commercial  countries  the  banks  had 
short  time  paper  which  they  could  take  to 
some  central  institution,  such  as  the  Bank  of 
England,  the  Bank  of  France,  and  so  on,  and 
have  it  at  once  converted  into  cash.  We  had 
nothing  of  that  sort.  We,  as  a  rule,  took  a  se- 
curity in  our  banking  business,  a  note  at  three, 
or  four  or  six  months,  and  we  put  it  away  in  a 
box  and  we  never  saw  it  again  until  the  day 
it  was  due.  Not  so,  the  English  or  French  or 
German  banks.  When  they  run  short  of  money, 
they  take  out  a  bunch  of  what  they  call 
"prime  discounts"  and  take  it  to  the  Central 
bank  and  get  the  money  for  it.  There  is  always 
in  these  places  a  discount  market,  just  the 
same  as  on  the  Board  of  Trade  in  Chicago, 
there  is  always  a  price  at  which  you  can  sell 
a   bushel  of  wheat.   And   when    these   banks 


12  8  sketches  and  Speeches 

want  to  put  up  the  rate  of  discount  to  get  gold, 
it  means  just  the  same  as  if  a  man  was  short 
of  wheat  in  Chicago,  and  put  the  price  up  in 
Chicago  as  against  Kansas  City  and  Minne- 
apolis, and  the  wheat  would  pass  Kansas 
City  and  Minneapolis  and  come  to  Chicago. 

We  never  before  had  anything  of  that  kind 
in  this  country,  but,  with  these  Federal  Re- 
serve Banks  we  have  the  privilege  of  re-dis- 
counting. We  take  paper  at  thirty  or  sixty 
days,  and  in  some  cases  longer  —  but  these 
are  details  I  need  not  bother  you  with  —  and 
we  have  it  placed  to  our  credit  in  the  Federal 
Reserve  Bank,  and  get  back  cash  for  it. 

Now,  here's  a  point  I  want  you  to  under- 
stand clearly.  I  have  found  that  everybody 
doesn't  understand  this  point,  and  I  want  you 
to  get  it  clearly.  How  does  it  work?  How  do  we 
get  the  money?  This  is  how  it  works.  Suppose 
that  my  bank  for  any  reason  whatever,  general, 
individual,  or  local,  needs  a  million  dollars.  Be- 
fore, I  didn '  t  know  where  to  go  to  get  i  t.  Now,  I 
take  a  million  dollars  of  my  good  commercial 
paper,  given  for  commercial  purposes,  and  I  en- 
dorse it,  and  send  it  over  across  the  street,  to 
the  Federal  Reserve  Bank  of  Chicago,  and  they 
discount  it  and  they  put  the  proceeds  of  it  to 
my  bank's  credit  —  a  million  dollars,  less  a 


Federal  I^eserve  Banks         129 

little  hit  of  discount,  the  bank's  rake-ofF  — 
another  little  detail  we  needn't  talk  about! 
Well,  that  goes  to  my  credit.  Then  I  want  the 
money.  My  customers  are  asking  me  to  ship 
currency,  or  they  are  standing  in  line  in  my 
office,  and  want  the  money.  I  want  cash.  So 
I  send  over  a  messenger  with  a  check  on  the 
Federal  Reserve  Bank  for  half  a  million  dol- 
lars of  cash. 

Now,  how  does  it  give  me  that  cash?  There 
is  the  whole  point.  It  giv^es  me  its  own  promises 
to  pay.  It  simply  transfers  five  hundred  thou- 
sand o^ deposit  liability  from  my  account  to  five 
hundred  thousand  note  liability  in  the  circula- 
tion account.  It  does  not  need  togointoits  vault 
for  a  single  dollar  of  what  you  might  call  "re- 
serve money."  It  gives  me  its  own  promises  to 
pay,  but  that  is  cash,  because  when  it  does 
that  it  puts  up  with  the  Federal  Reserve  Agent 
representing  the  government  in  the  bank,  five 
hundred  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  the  paper 
that  I  sent  over  for  discount,  together  with  at 
least  forty  per  cent,  of  gold  reserve,  in  case 
these  promises  to  pay,  which  I  circulate  as 
money,  may  begin  to  come  in  for  redemption 
in  gold. 

Now,  that  power  is  unlimited.  A  bank  with 
the  power  to  issue  its  own  notes  as  cash  can 


130  sketches  and  Speeches 

take  care  of  an  enormous  amount  of  such  busi- 
ness, so  long  as  it  has  good  paper  for  it,  and 
a  proper  gold  reserve  against  contingencies. 
That  is  what  the  Federal  Reserve  Banks  are 
now  ready  to  do. 

We  have  also  begun  under  this  Act,  to  have 
a  "prime  discount"  market,  by  allowing  banks 
to  accept  the  drafts  of  their  customers,  or  ac- 
cept drafts  drawn  on  their  customers  for  their 
customers.  Perhaps  you  do  not  understand 
that,  some  of  you,  and  I  will  explain  it  in  just 
a  minute.  Take  the  business  of  importation  or 
exportation  of  goods.  We  will  say  that  a  whole- 
sale liquor  dealer  in  Detroit  imports  fifty  thou- 
sand dollars'  worth  of  champagne  from  France. 
He  tells  the  French  exporter  of  the  cham- 
pagne to  draw  on  him  at  ninety  days,  with 
the  Bills  of  Lading  attached,  and  to  ship  the 
champagne.  He  does  so.  That  draft  comes 
along  drawn  on  the  wholesale  liquor  dealer  of 
this  city.  Now,  under  the  new  system,  the 
wholesale  liquor  dealer  can  go  to  his  bank  and 
say,  "Will  you  accept  this  draft  for  me,  and 
let  me  take  the  Bills  of  Lading  and  get  the 
champagne?"  and  if  he  is  in  good  credit,  the 
bank  accepts  it.  That  is,  it  loans  its  credit  to 
its  customer  in  that  form  —  in  the  form  of  an 
acceptance,  and  the  bank  which  holds  the  ac- 


Federal  I(e serve  Banks         131 

ceptance  now  holds  a  prime  bill,  which  any- 
day  can  be  readily  discounted  at  the  Federal 
Reserve  Bank.  So  we  have  begun  to  have  what 
all  other  great  countries  have  —  a  real  discount 
market. 

The  last  thing  that  these  financial  physicians 
told  us  we  needed  was  centralization  of  bank- 
ing power,  closely  allied  to  the  national  govern- 
ment. You  don't  need  to  know  very  much 
about  banking  to  understand  what  a  wonder- 
fully tranquilizing  effect  a  great  central  in- 
stitution closely  allied  to  the  national  govern- 
ment has,  in  troublous  times.  You  know  the 
old  story  about  the  negro  who  didn't  want  his 
money  when  he  found  it  was  there,  but  wanted 
it  very  badly  when  he  thought  it  wasn't  there. 
That  is  human  nature!  You  remember  when 
Baring  Brothers  failed  in  '90,  how  a  shiver 
went  through  the  whole  world.  What  hap- 
pened? The  Bank  of  England  announced  the 
next  day  that  they  had  taken  hold  of  the  Bar- 
ing Brothers'  situation.  The  panic  disappeared. 
We  learned  afterward  that  the  Bank  of 
France  was  behind  the  Bank  of  England  in  that 
transaction.  Again,  when  the  old  Comptoir 
had  a  run  on  it,  the  Bank  of  France  announced 
that  they  would  take  care  of  the  Comptoir's 
obligations,  and  the  panic  disappeared.  The 


132  sketches  and  Speeches 

Bank  of  France  being  closely  allied  to  the  gov- 
ernment was  practically  the  same  thing  as  the 
government.  Just  lately,  when  war  broke  out, 
the  Bank  of  England  undertook  to  protect 
all  acceptances,  because  the  government  an- 
nounced that  it  would  stand  back  of  the  Bank 
of  England. 

Panic  is  unreasoning  fear.  We  could  have  a 
panic  now  if  someone  yelled  "fire,"  perhaps, 
and  some  of  us  might  get  hurt  before  we  got 
out,  although  there  might  not  be  any  fire. 

I  think  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  by  the 
passage  of  the  Federal  Reserve  Act,  and  the 
establishment  of  the  Federal  Reserve  Banks, 
the  days  of  general  suspension  are  over,  in  this 
country.  Had  they  been  in  operation  when  the 
war  broke  out  we  would  not  have  had  recourse 
to  Clearing  House  Certificates,  nor  Aldrich- 
Vreeland  Emergency  currency.  I  do  not  expect 
to  live  to  see  general  suspension  again,  and  I 
am  very  glad  of  it.  The  future,  however,  of 
these  banks  depends  very  largely  upon  their 
administration.  I  have  tried  to  show  you  that 
they  have  got  the  main  principles  right.  These 
are  the  four  great  main  principles  I  have  stated, 
and  I  think  we  have  them  in  this  Federal  Re- 
serve Act.  At  present  there  is  a  little  wobbling 
going  on  because  they  are  new.  We  have  got  a 


Federal  I^eserve  Banks         133 

good  Federal  Reserve  Board,  but  one  on  which 
there  are  very  few  bankers,  and  they  have  not 
just  found  themselves  yet,  so  the  banks  are 
showing  statements  where  they  have  not  made 
very  much  money  —  not  enough  to  take  care 
of  their  expenses  —  but  that  is  nothing.  That 
will  take  care  of  itself  in  good  time.  We  must 
be  patient.  The  Federal  Banks  should  pur- 
chase government  bonds  and  other  securi- 
ties allowed  by  the  Act,  sufficient  to  pay 
expenses. 

There  are  two  ways  to  run  this  Federal  Re- 
serve Bank.  If  the  politicians  get  tired  of  seeing 
that  little  debit  there  at  expense  account,  and 
begin  to  demand  that  this  bank  be  run  more 
"for  the  people,"  and  that  the  bank  should  get 
into  the  banking  business  and  compete  with 
us  —  its  own  members,  stockholders,  and  de- 
positors —  why  of  course  they  might  make  a 
little  money,  but  that  would  not  be  the  way 
to  run  the  bank.  In  the  first  place,  it  would  be 
grossly  unfair  to  take  our  money  that  costs  us 
interest,  give  us  no  interest  for  it,  and  come 
back  into  the  street  and  compete  with  us, 
with  our  own  money,  because  all  the  money  in 
the  Federal  Reserve  Banks  belongs  to  the 
members  of  the  bank,  except  such  money  as 
the  government  in  the  future  may  put  in.  If 


134  Sketches  and  Speeches 

they  did  that,  we  would  not  have  the  bank  at 
the  time  we  needed  it. 

There  was  a  man  died  once,  and  he  left  in 
his  will  enough  money  to  build  a  hospital,  and 
in  the  will  he  said  that  in  that  hospital  there 
must  always  be  a  bed  kept  for  emergencies. 
Well,  after  the  hospital  was  going  full  blast, 
there  was  a  man  nearly  killed,  badly  hurt,  and 
they  ran  him  up  to  the  hospital,  but  it  was 
filled,  and  the  superintendent  said,  "We  can't 
take  him  in."  And  the  assistant  superintendent 
said,  "Why,  we  have  the  emergency  bed.  We 
can  use  that."  But  the  superintendent  said, 
"No,  we  can't  use  that.  Don't  you  know  that 
by  the  will  of  the  late  So-and-so,  that  bed  has 
to  be  kept  for  emergencies?" 

That  is  exactly  the  way  we  used  to  handle 
our  reserves.  We  used  to  keep  them,  and  when 
the  emergency  came,  the  law  would  not  allow 
us  to  use  them.  Each  one  had  to  save  up  his 
own  bucket  of  water,  because  the  law  demand- 
ed he  should  keep  it  full  and  forbade  him  to 
use  it.  Now  we  do  have,  in  these  Federal  Re- 
serve Banks,  banks  for  emergencies,  but  if 
we  get  them  full  of  loans  and  competing  with 
us,  when  the  emergency  comes,  they  will  be 
useless.  The  emergency  bed  will  be  full,  and 
there  will  be  no  place  to  put  the  new  patient. 


Federal  I^eserve  Banks         135 

There  are  several  dangers  that  lie  in  the 
path  of  this  new  banking  system,  and  the 
greatest  of  these  is  that  politics  may  get  into 
it.  Anyone  who  knows  the  history  of  the  First 
and  Second  banks  of  the  United  States,  and 
knows  how  they  were  both  destroyed  by  poli- 
tics cannot  help  but  tremble  a  little  for  the 
future  of  the  Federal  Reserve  Banks,  if  politics 
ever  gets  into  them.  We  have  had  a  little  taste 
of  that  in  Chicago,  already.  I  daresay  some  of 
you  saw  it  in  the  papers  —  it  was  a  tempest 
in  a  teapot.  Our  local  senator  made  the  dis- 
covery that  out  of  thirty-nine  clerks  not  a 
single  Democrat  had  been  appointed.  What 
he  meant  was  that  not  a  single  Democrat  rec- 
ommended by  him  had  been  appointed!  These 
men  were  some  of  the  best  clerks  in  Chicago, 
selected  for  their  ability,  and  nothing  else.  We 
were  sorry  to  lose  them  from  our  banks.  Well, 
lately,  someone  took  the  trouble  to  find  out 
just  what  politics  they  had.  Out  of  the  thirty- 
nine,  thirteen  were  minors,  who  had  no  vote 
at  the  election;  twelve  voted  for  Wilson; 
twelve  for  Roosevelt;  and  only  two  for  Taftl 

I  don't  want  to  enlarge  upon  that,  but  I 
would  just  like  to  say  to  you  business  men, 
stand  for  all  you  are  worth  against  politics  ever 
getting  hold  of  this  thing  in  any  way.  So  far, 


136  sketches  and  Speeches 

I  am  glad  to  say  that  the  whole  tendency  of  the 
Federal  Reserve  Board,  and  of  the  Boards  of 
these  Federal  Reserve  Banks  is  to  resist  that 
to  the  last  ditch,  and  I  hope  they  will  always 
stand  there. 

Another  danger  that  I  see  in  the  future  is  the 
danger  of  these  banks  disappointing  the  people 
by  not  doing  what  their  promoters  claimed 
they  would  do. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  banking.  There  is  in- 
vestment banking  and  commercial  banking. 
Investment  banking  supplies  capital  to  busi- 
ness by  long-term  loans,  or  by  large  issues  of 
stocks  or  bonds.  That  is  largely  in  the  hands  of 
private  bankers,  the  biggest  of  whom  are  in 
Wall  Street.  The  other  kind  of  banking,  com- 
mercial banking,  is  represented  by  all  the  or- 
dinary national  banks  and  state  banks.  These 
banks  do  not  supply  capital  on  long  time  loans, 
or  place  issues  of  stocks.  They  augment  capital 
by  short-time  loans.  Their  business  is  not  in 
private  hands,  except  to  a  very  small  extent. 
It  is  in  the  hands  of  banks  chartered  by  state 
or  national  government,  and  all  of  them  are 
under  the  very  closest  governmental  super- 
vision. 

Now  for  many  years  back,  the  commercial 
banks  advocated  reform  of  the  system  of  com- 


Federal  I^eserve  Banks         137 

mercial  banking,  but  a  few  years  ago  the  poli- 
ticians commenced  to  agitate  reform  of  the  in- 
vestment bankers.  I  am  not  going  to  say  any- 
thing against  the  private  bankers.  It  will  be  a 
bad  day  for  this  country  when  we  do  not  have 
private  banking  houses  big  enough  to  take 
care  of  the  great  issues  of  stocks  and  bonds  re- 
quired by  our  big  enterprises,  and  the  Federal 
Reserve  Banks  are  forbidden  to  have  anything 
to  do  with  stocks  and  bonds.  But  here's  the 
point.  All  the  speeches  made  by  the  promoters 
of  the  Federal  Reserve  Act  —  from  our  Presi- 
dent down  —  had  in  mind  investment  banking 
while  they  proposed  the  reform  of  commercial 
banking.  The  present  Federal  Reserve  Banksdo 
not  touch  the  private  bankers  in  Wall  Street, 
against  whom  all  the  speeches  of  the  promoters 
of  this  Act  were  made.  It  was  the  acts  of  in- 
vestment bankers  that  gave  any  color  at  all  to 
this  talk  about  divorcing  speculation  from 
banking,  and  doing  away  with  the  issue  of 
watered  stock,  and  stopping  the  enormous  im- 
proper commissions  that  had  been  earned.  All 
that  referred  to  the  business  of  investment, 
private  bankers,  and  they  are  not  affected  in 
any  way  by  this  new  Bill.  So  we  had  a  little 
confusion  of  thought  there,  and  the  people 
were  led  to  expect  from  this  Federal  Reserve 


138  sketches  and  Speeches 

Act  a  great  deal  that  won't  happen  along  these 
lines. 

Another  matter  they  were  led  to  expect  was 
—  and  this  will  interest  you  business  men  — 
that  with  these  Federal  Reserve  Banks  we 
were  somehow  going  to  make  all  checks  pass 
everywhere  at  par.  Gentlemen,  I  don't  be- 
lieve it  can  be  done.  I  think  they  are  going  to 
be  disappointed,  but  that  doesn't  mean  that 
they  are  not  going  to  modify  the  exchange 
charges.  They  are  already  taking  at  par  bank 
drafts  on  their  own  members  in  each  individual 
district.  Now  what  is  the  result  already?  One 
Federal  Reserve  Bank  lately  reported  over 
fifty  overdrafts.  Instead  of  fifty  of  their  mem- 
ber banks  having  their  reserve  in  the  Federal 
Reserve  Bank,  they  had  an  overdraft  created 
by  the  Federal  Reserve  Bank  charging  to 
these  banks  checks  drawn  on  them,  and  not 
waiting  until  they  reached  the  banks  on  which 
they  were  drawn.  Now  that  is  a  difficult  prob- 
lem. I  think  they  are  going  to  modify  the  ex- 
change charges,  but  I  do  not  believe  it  is  pos- 
sible to  make  checks  everywhere  —  big  and 
Httle  —  go  at  par. 

I  wish  we  had  stuck  to  the  original  name  of 
these  banks.  You  say,  "What's  in  a  name?"  In 
this  case  I  think  there  is  a  great  deal  in  a  name. 


Federal  Reserve  Bankf         139 

If  we  had  continued  to  call  these  banks  Fed- 
eral Reserve  "Associations"  it  would  have 
conveyed  to  the  public  mind  a  much  clearer 
idea  of  what  they  really  are.  They  are  a  pool- 
ing of  the  reserves  of  member  banks,  as  I  have 
already  explained  to  you,  and  they  should  not 
have  been  called  banks.  That  has  been  the 
foundation  of  a  great  deal  of  misunderstanding. 
Even  our  President  has  seemed  to  convey  the 
idea  that  these  banks  are  going  to  do  away 
with  the  difficulties  in  obtaining  credit.  They 
are  not  going  to  make  it  one  bit  easier  for  any- 
one who  does  not  deserve  credit,  to  get  it.  I 
have  never  known  any  one  who  deserved  credit 
who  did  not  get  it.  I  have  known  an  awful  lot  to 
get  it  who  did  not  deserve  it.  It  would  also  have 
been  better  if  only  about  ten  per  cent,  of  the 
subscribed  capital  had  been  called  in,  because 
the  dividend  to  be  earned  would  have  been  so 
much  less. 

Then,  I  think  it  would  have  been  much 
better  if  our  advice  had  been  taken,  and  there 
had  not  been  twelve  —  there  should  only 
have  been  one  —  with  branches.  If  there  had 
been  one  it  could  have  handled  the  exchange 
situation  much  better  than  twelve. 

If  properly  administered,  however,  I  think 
I  have  said  enough  to  show  that  these  banks 


140  sketches  and  Speeches 

must  be  of  great  benefit  to  this  country.  When 
my  child  is  sick,  gentlemen,  I  don't  send  for  a 
shoemaker;  I  send  for  the  doctor  —  and  if  you 
want  these  banks  to  be  a  success,  they  must  be 
run  by  bankers.  I  have  the  greatest  respect  for 
all  kinds  of  business  men,  but  "to  every  man 
his  work."  Again,  the  very  essence  of  banking 
is  discrimination,  and  the  very  essence  of 
government  is  no  discrimination,  and  the 
government  cannot  run  a  bank.  If  these  banks 
are  left  to  be  run  by  the  very  able  directors 
elected  by  the  members  who  own  the  stock 
and  the  deposits,  they  will  be  successful.  I 
don't  care  how  close  the  supervision  is  of  the 
Federal  Reserve  Board  in  Washington,  but 
allow  the  bankers  to  make  the  credits,  and 
manage  the  banks.  They  cannot  be  run  suc- 
cessfully by  any  one  else. 

I  am  very  glad  to  say  in  conclusion  that  I 
think  the  pendulum  has  begun  to  swing  back 
a  little  from  the  days  of  calling  all  great  busi- 
ness men  malefactors,  and  trying  to  make  out 
that  by  some  unfair  means  they  all  abstracted 
their  wealth  from  the  pockets  of  the  people. 
I  think  the  pendulum  is  beginning  to  swing  the 
other  way.  The  press  and  the  pulpit  are  be- 
ginning to  have  a  little  more  respect  for  the 
honorably  successful  businessman.  Gentlemen, 


Federal  Reserve  Banks         141 

in  these  days,  and  with  the  present  ideas  of 
things,  what  life  is  there,  after  all,  better  than 
that  of  the  honorably  successful  business  man  ? 
To  have  endured  early  hardships  with  forti- 
tude, and  overcome  difficulties  by  persever- 
ance; to  have  founded  or  developed  a  large 
business,  useful  in  itself,  and  giving  employ- 
ment to  many;  to  have  achieved  position, 
fortune,  independence  and  influence;  to  have 
given  largely  of  money  to  charity,  and  of  time 
to  citizenship;  to  have  established  a  character 
above  reproach;  to  have  accumulated  the  ad- 
miration, the  confidence  and  the  friendship 
of  his  fellows,  and  to  have  gained  all  these  of 
the  world,  without  losing  the  soul  by  avarice, 
or  starving  the  heart  by  hardness!  The  man 
who  has  so  lived  has  nobly  lived  and  he 
should  find  peace  and  satisfaction  when  the 
shadows  begin  to  lengthen,  and  the  evening  of 
life  draws  on. 


SPEECHES    III 

ST.  ANDREWS  SOCIETY 

WINNIPEG  ANNUAL 

DINNEIi 

Toast:  The  day  and  all  who  honor  it. 

Mr.  President,  Sir  Rodman  Roblin,  Sir  William 
Whyte  and  Gentlemen: 

(Il5^(^j^  THANK  you  for  this  pleasant  op- 
^gi^^V^fc^  portunity  to  return  to  your 
5#3  J  iiSf  great  city  where  in  1881  I  paid 
1^^  1^  $7-Oo  per  week  for  a  stair-land- 

1885  I  married  the  best  girl 
then  in  the  town.  I  came  here  almost  directly 
from  my  native  place  —  old  St.  Andrews, 
Scotland,  where,  according  to  tradition,  Saint 
Regulus  brought  the  bones  of  Saint  Andrew 
from  Constantinople  in  the  eighth  century. 
Immediately  thereafter  Saint  Andrew  became 
the  patron  Saint  of  Scotland,  and  his  festival 

143 


1 44  Sketches  and  Speeches 

has  been  celebrated  on  the  thirtieth  of  No- 
vember ever  since.  We  are  not  now  so  particu- 
lar as  to  the  exact  day,  nor  do  we  celebrate  the 
Apostle's  sanctity  in  just  the  same  manner.  In 
fact  we  drop  the  old  Saint,  and  celebrate  only 
what  he  stands  for  —  the  hills  and  dales,  the 
history  and  traditions,  the  poetry  and  the 
people  of  bonnie  Scotland. 

Scotland  is  but  a  little  country  —  less  than 
half  the  size  of  Manitoba  —  a  mere  speck  on 
the  map  of  the  world.  But  the  Kingdom  of 
Scotland,  which  is  in  the  hearts  of  her  sons, 
extends  o'er  all  the  earth,  and  on  St.  Andrew's 
day,  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe,  Scotsmen 
and  their  descendants  gather,  as  we  do  here 
tonight,  to  do  honor  to  that  little  land. 

With  narrow  natural  resources,  a  soil  in  large 
portion  unproductive,  and  an  uncertain  cli- 
mate, she  is  the  stern  but  beautiful  mother  of 
a  rugged  race  —  a  race  which  has  wandered 
into  every  country,  and  held  its  own  with  all 
comers.  No  spot  on  earth  is  too  far  away  from 
Scotland  for  Scotchmen  to  have  reached  it. 
Go  where  you  will,  you  will  find  them  generally 
doing  well  for  themselves,  and  seldom  doing 
any  one  else.  I  knew  of  one  called  Brander, 
who  found  his  way  to  Tahiti,  there  married  the 
Queen,  and  in  due  time  sent  home  his  half- 


Si.  Andrews  Society  Dinner     145 

breed  Princes  to  be  educated  at  St.  Andrews. 
There  are  a  dozen  noble  families  in  Sweden; 
there  are  millions  of  Yankees  and  Canadians  in 
America;  there  are  apparent  Indians  in  your 
Northwest  jibbering  Sioux;  there  are  seeming 
Frenchmen  in  Quebec,  jabbering  French,  and 
lately  a  freckle- faced,  red-headed  tribe  of  Es- 
quimos  is  said  to  have  been  discovered  near  the 
North  Pole  —  but  all  of  them  answer  to  Scotch 
names.  The  Scot  is  certainly  a  good  mixer! 
Perhaps  it  was  this  quality  of  getting  on  with 
any  people  anywhere  that  led  him  to  see  the 
vision  of  the  Brotherhood  of  the  race  set  forth 
by  the  national  voice  of  Burns: 

""Then  let  us  pray  that  come  it  may, 
{As  come  it  will  for  a'  that,) 
That  Sense  and  Worth  o'er  a  the  earth. 
Shall  hear  the  gree  and  a  that. 
For  a  that  and  a  that. 
It's  coming  yet  jor  a  that, 
That  man  to  man  the  world  o'er 
Shall  br  it  hers  be  for  a'  that.'' 

But  to  those  of  us  who  were  born  there, 
Scotland  holds  a  special  interest.  To  us  it  is, 
and  always  will  be,  home.  And  beneath  our 
hilarity  our  hearts  are  tender  as  we  think  of 


146  sketches  and  Speeches 

our  parents,  perchance  still  alive  in  the  old 
land,  or  more  likely,  sleeping  peacefully  in  her 
bosom. 

To  us,  Scotland  is  largely  a  memory.  We  sit 
down  by  the  open  fire,  with  no  other  light  in 
the  room,  and  half  dozing,  our  minds  wander 
back  over  the  winding  pathway  of  the  past, 
until  there  finally  comes  into  view  a  little 
Scotch  laddie,  trudging  "with  shining  face" 
and  well-patched  breeks  to  school  —  a  laddie 
who  bears  a  misty  but  unmistakable  likeness 
to  ourselves.  We  hear  again  the  swish  of  his 
lash  as  he  whups  up  his  top,  or  the  slap  of  the 
teacher's  tawse  on  his  poor  tingling  hands  — 
and  in  one  or  two  cases  of  cruel  injustice  — 
we  wish  we  had  that  teacher  now !  We  accom- 
pany the  laddie's  family  to  the  village  kirk  on 
the  Sabbath,  and,  sitting  on  hard  benches,  we 
hear  them  sing  with  full  hearts  — "Praise  God 
from  whom  all  blessings  flow,"  and  we  are  al- 
most startled  out  of  our  reverie  by  the  sharp 
contrast  to  our  present  custom  of  lolling  back 
on  cushioned  seats  while  a  well-paid  quartette 
choir  sings  to  us  "Art  Thou  Weary,  art  thou 
Languid?"  We  see  the  laddie  again  playing 
"catty  and  doggie"  or  leap  frog;  fishing  or  gud- 
dlin'  for  trout  in  the  burn,  or  kicking  up  his 
bare  heels  in  the  glad  Springtime. 


Sl  Andrews  Society  Dinner     147 

Perhaps  we  can  recall  his  delight  as  his 
strong  father  throws  him  heels  o'er  head  on  to 
his  shoulders,  and  perhaps  the  tear  dims  our 
eye  as  we  hear  again  his  mother  calling  him  to 
her  knee  to  say  his  prayers,  or  as  we  again  feel 
her  tenderly  tucking  him  in  bed  for  the  night, 
and  we  sigh  for  **the  touch  of  a  vanished  hand, 
and  the  sound  of  a  voice  that  is  still." 

Or,  perhaps  we  are  fortunate  enough  to  have 
a  nearer  view  by  reason  of  a  recent  visit  to  the 
loved  scenes  of  our  childhood.  I  myself  spent  a 
few  all-too-short  weeks  there  a  year  ago.  I  saw 
again  matchless  Princess  Street,  Edinburgh, 
and  I  am  sorry  to  say,  equally  matchless  High 
Street.  I  visited  Lady  Stairs  Close,  and  saw 
the  winding  stone  steps  up  which  Robbie  Burns 
made  his  way — doubtless  sometimes  with  con- 
siderable difficulty  —  to  his  lodgings. 

I  saw  beautiful  Abbotsford  which  Sir  Walter 
Scott  gained  —  and  lost  —  and  re-gained  by 
sitting  down  at  the  age  of  fifty-five  with  noth- 
ing but  his  pen  to  write  off  a  debt  of  half  a  mil- 
lion dollars  for  which  he  was  legally,  although 
scarcely  morally,  liable.  In  these  days  of  easy 
compromise,  to  his  everlasting  honor  be  it  said 
that  his  heroic  work  wiped  out  the  debt  al- 
though he  himself  broke  down  in  the  effort, 
and  did  not  live  to  see  his  aim  accomplished. 


148  sketches  and  Speeches 

I  stood  in  grand  old  St.  Giles  Cathedral  and, 
not  without  emotion,  as  I  thought  of  his  poor 
body  buried  in  far-off  Samoa,  I  read  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson's  own  beautiful  lines  on  the 
tablet  erected  to  his  memory: — 

''Under  the  wide  and  starry  sky 
Dig  the  grave  and  let  me  lie^ 
Glad  did  I  live,  and  gladly  die. 
And  I  lay  7ne  down  with  a  will. 

This  be  the  verse  you  grave  for  fne; 
Here  he  lies  where  he  longed  to  be; 
Home  is  the  sailor,  home  jrom  the  sea. 
And  the  hunter  home  from  the  hill!'' 

But,  as  the  Irishman  said,  everybody  loves 
his  native  land,  whether  he  was  born  there  or 
not.  Many  of  us  are  sons  of  the  old  land,  while 
many  more  are  doubtless  only  grandsons.  It  is 
remarkable  how  even  stepsons,  so  to  speak, 
love  to  claim  and  proclaim  their  relationship  to 
Scotland. 

On  an  occasion  like  this  we  are  always  twit- 
ted sarcastically  on  our  modesty  —  but  surely 
we  Scotchmen  may  be  allowed  one  night  each 
year  in  which  to  imbibe  a  little  hot  Scotch  and 
then  give  vent  to  a  little  hot  air!  And  we  do  ad- 


Sr.  Andrews  Society  Dinner    1 49 

mire  modesty  —  in  its  proper  place.  "Aye 
keep  your  *eeon  the  ground,"  said  a  Scotchman 
to  his  daughter  departing  for  the  great  city  — 
"It  looks  modest-like,  and  ye  micht  find  a 
sixpence." 

I  shall  no  doubt  be  accused  of  boasting  if  I 
recount  the  fact  that  four  out  of  the  last  five 
Prime  Ministers  of  the  Empire  (before  the  pres- 
ent one)  were  Scotchmen, —  although  by  popu- 
lation we  should  have  only  about  one  in  ten;  or 
that  both  the  Archbishops  of  the  Church  of 
England  are  Scotchmen  notwithstanding  the 
days  of  the  Covenanters  —  or  that  the  Bank  of 
England  was  founded  and  has  generally  been 
managed  by  Scotchmen.  Time  would  fail  me  to 
enumerate  the  great  positions  in  the  Empire, 
and  in  the  world,  filled  by  our  countrymen.  You 
know  the  story  of  the  Scotchman  who  claimed 
even  Shakespeare  as  a  Scotchman,  and  when 
challenged  to  prove  it,  replied, —  "I  canna' 
just  prove  it,  but  we  may  reasonably  infer  it 
from  his  stupendous  abeelity." 

The  chief  traits  of  Scottish  character  are  well 
known  and  easily  recognized.  The  Scot  is  a 
dour  chiel.  You  cannot  drive  him.  Neither 
Rome  nor  England  could  ever  subdue  him.  He 
stuck  to  his  independence  and  to  his  religion 
to  the  death.  But  he  helped  to  bring  about  the 


150  sketches  and  Speeches 

religious  liberty  which  the  English  speaking 
race  now  enjoys.  He  is  canny  and  holds  on  to 
his  money.  He  and  the  Jew  are  the  subject  of 
unnumbered  jokes  on  that  score.  Did  you  ever 
hear  the  story  of  the  Jew  cab-driver  who  had 
a  Scotchman  for  a  fare,  and  the  Scotchman  paid 
him  a  quarter  too  much,  and  the  Jew  declined 
to  take  it?  No?  No!  and  you  never  will  hear 
that  story! 

I  hear  that  lately,  at  a  church  fair  there  was 
a  machine  bearing  the  sign  "Put  in  a  penny 
and  if  you  push  hard  enough,  you  will  get  back 
a  nickel."  The  next  day  when  they  went  to 
clear  away  the  debris  of  the  fair,  they  found  at 
the  foot  of  that  machine  a  Scotchman  —  lying 
dead. 

Yes!  these  stories  are  all  very  funny.  Joke 
as  you  will  about  Scotch  frugality,  but  let  me 
say  that  the  oldest  charitable  society  in  Illi- 
nois is  the  St.  Andrew  Society,  and  seeing  that 
this  is  your  forty-first  annual  meeting,  I  judge 
yours  must  be  the  first  charitable  society  to 
have  been  established  here,  and  that  the  oldest 
charitable  organization  on  this  Continent  is 
the  Scotch  Charitable  Society  of  Boston.  The 
truth  is,  the  Scot  has  always  valued  money 
chiefly  as  a  means  to  an  end,  —  to  get  an  edu- 
cation, or  as  Burns  has  it  — 


Sr.  Andrews  Society  Dinner     151 

'*  Not  for  to  hide  it  i?j  a  hedge  y 
Or  for  a  train  attendant^ 
But  for  the  glorious  privilege 
Of  being  independent.'' 

And  he  is  ready  to  subscribe  to  Kingsley  when 
he  says  — 

'*/  wadna  gie  an  auld  bawbee 
For  ony  man  —  wha   ere  he  be 
That  didna  hold 

The  sweetness  0'  his  mithers  name. 
The  justice  0'  his  brither  s  claim ^ 

'  The  honor  0'  a  woman  s  fame 
Far  maer  than  gold'' 

Some  people  who  do  not  know  him  are  fond 
of  saying  that  the  Scotchman  cannot  see  a  joke. 
It  was  Samuel  Johnson  who  said  that  it  re- 
quired a  surgical  operation  to  get  a  joke  into  a 
Scotchman's  head,  but  the  reply  of  the  Scot 
was  both  pawky  and  sufficient  — "Dr.  John- 
son," he  said,  "being  an  Englishman,  no  doubt 
referred  to  English  jokes." 

Max  O'Rell,  the  witty  Frenchman  testifies 
that  the  most  responsive  audience  he  ever  ad- 
dressed was  in  a  Scottish  village.  It  is  true  that 
his  humor  is  sometimes  of  a  rather  funereal 


152  sketches  and  Speeches 

type,  as  for  example,  when  the  Scotch  lover 
finally  managed  to  propose  to  his  sweetheart 
by  taking  her  to  the  grave-yard,  and  after  care- 
fully pointing  out  the  resting  places  of  his  fam- 
ily asked  "Wad  ye  like  to  lie  there,  Jean  ?" 

Again,  I  think  it  is  remarkable  that  what- 
ever emanates  from  Scotland  has  a  distinctive 
character  of  its  own.  Scotch  theology,  for 
example,  is  a  hard-headed,  practical  and  logi- 
cal system  of  belief.  Granted  the  premises  and 
the  conclusions  are  as  sure  as  mathematics.  It 
is  only  fair  to  say,  however,  that  theology  is 
becoming  more  liberal  in  Scotland,  as  it  is 
elsewhere,  and  harsh  orthodoxy  is  being  con- 
fined to  the  smaller  communities.  This  fact  is 
well  illustrated  by  a  story.  The  minister  of  a 
summer  resort  —  a  liberal  —  found  his  church 
well  filled  during  the  Summer  months  by  the 
visitors  from  the  cities,  but  in  Winter,  the  at- 
tendance was  very  slim.  "Tell  me,  John,"  he 
said  to  the  beadle,  "why  don't  my  own  people 
come  out  to  hear  me."  "Weel,  Sir,"  answered 
John,  "ye  see,  to  Scotch  folk  there's  nae  com- 
fort in  a  releegion  without  a  hell." 

Another  religious  tendency  is  illustrated  by 
the  story  of  the  minister  who  was  visiting  a 
sick  man  when  the  doctor  announced  that  he 
had  but  a  few  minutes  to  live.  "Mr.  Macdon- 


St.  Andrews  Society  Dinner     153 

aid,"  said  the  minister,  "what  can  I  do  for  you 
in  these  last  moments,  shall  I  pray?"  "Na, 
na,"  said  Macdonald.  "Then  shall  I  read  to 
you  from  the  Word?"  "Na,"  said  Macdonald 
again.  "Dear  me,"  said  the  minister  in  distress, 
"is  there  nothing  I  can  do  for  you  ?"  "Ou,  aye," 
replied  Macdonald,  "ye  can  argie  wi  me." 

Again,  Scotch  whiskey  is  quite  as  distinctive 
as  Scotch  theology.  It  is  also  quite  as  logical. 
You  swallow  the  premises  and  the  results  are 
certain!  And  their  games  —  golf  and  curling — ■ 
are  they  not  as  distinctive,  as  simple  and 
profound  as  all  else  about  this  peculiar 
people? 

I  need  not  point  out  the  distinctive  qualities 
of  Scotch  music.  I  do  not  refer  to  the  Bagpipes, 
which  is  distinctive  enough,  but  rather  to  the 
fact  that  there  is  a  lilt  and  a  rhythm  to  a  Scotch 
tune  which  is  as  recognizably  Scotch  as  the 
burr  on  my  tongue.  And  I  think  no  songs 
ever  written  come  so  close  to  the  life  and  the 
heart  of  the  common  people  as  do  the  Scotch 
songs. 

"C^'  the  y owes  to  the  knowes^ 
Ca  them  whar  the  heather  growes, 
Ca  them  whar  the  burnie  roweSy 
My  bonnie  dearie y 


154  Sketches  and  Speeches 

And  even  among  the  passionate  love  songs 
of  Southern  peoples  you  will  search  far  before 
you  will  find  an  equal  to  Annie  Laurie  — 

^'Her  brow  is  like  the  snow-drift ^ 
Her  neck  is  like  the  swan, 
Her  face  it  is  the  fairest, 
That  e'er  the  sun  shone  on. 

Like  dew  on  gowan  lying. 

Is  the  fa'  o'  her  fairy  feet; 

And  like  winds  in  Summer  sighing. 

Her  voice  is  low  and  sweety 

Even  in  their  qualities  as  fighting  men,  I 
believe  there  is  a  distinctive  character.  There 
are  no  more  brilliant  soldiers  than  the  French, 
provided  they  are  winning,  and  there  are  no 
more  dogged  fighters  than  theScotch  when  they 
are  losing.  In  their  almost  innumerable  fights 
with  the  English,  by  reason  of  inferior  num- 
bers and  equipment  they  usually  got  the  worst 
of  it.  But  they  never  stayed  licked,  and  Scot- 
land was  never  subdued.  Neither  are  they  in- 
capable of  the  headlong  dash.  Indeed,  their 
impatience  to  get  to  close  quarters  with  the 
enemy  sometimes  cost  them  dear.  But  not  al- 
ways. It  sometimes  carried  the  day.  At  Water- 


St.  Andrews  Society  Dinner    155 

loo,  when  the  British  had  withstood  the  brunt 
of  the  French  onslaughts  all  day,  Wellington 
finally  ordered  the  Highland  Brigade,  and  the 
Scots  Greys  to  charge.  It  is  recorded  that  many 
of  the  Highlanders  on  foot  ran  in  between  the 
grey  horses,  and  catching  hold  of  the  stirrup 
straps  of  the  riders,  they  charged  Napoleon's 
hitherto  invincible  heavy  cavalry  and  swept  it 
from  the  field;  and  as  they  thus  sped  with  eager 
feet  to  meet  the  foe,  a  mighty  shout  rose  above 
the  roar  of  battle  — "Scotland  forever." 

And  so,  gentlemen,  let  us  honor  the  day  and 
all  that  it  stands  for.  Let  us  continue  to  boast, 
at  least  once  a  year,  that  the  blood  of  one  of 
earth's  strongest  races  runs  in  our  veins.  And 
whatever  be  our  present  allegiance,  I  am  sure 
we  will  be  all  the  more  loyal  citizens  if  we  con- 
tinue to  love  the  land  from  which  we  sprang  — 
the  land  of  mountain  and  loch  —  of  barren 
moor  and  purple  heather, —  the  land  of  tender 
memories  and  leal  hearts,  the  land  of  poetry 
and  romance,  of  stirring  story  and  legend- 
ary lore;  the  land  of  struggle  and  hardship,  of 
overcoming  and  achievement,  the  land  of  ever- 
widening  influence  and  everlasting  glory! 


SPEECHES    IV 


GOLF  AND  BANKING 

An  address  delivered  at 
the  Detroit  Bankers  Club  Dinner,  January,  1917. 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen: 
i^^^^^^^f^^  ^^^  much  easier   to   accept 
^^^^^  your   kind   invitation    to   dine 
T     Si^  with  you  and  speak  to  you  to- 
1^1  1^  night  than  to  select  a  subject 

SI^«§llESU  suitable  for  the  occasion.  Upon 
consideration,  however,  I  de- 
cided that  instead  of  attempting  to  make  a 
speech  on  a  subject  I  knew  little  of,  I  would 
confine  myself  to  the  two  things  I  knew  most 
about  even  at  the  risk  of  treating  of  trite  sub- 
jects. Having  been  addicted  to  golf  for  fifty 
and  to  banking  for  forty  years,  it  is  at  least 
time  I  knew  something  of  both,  although  I  am 
not  so  sure  of  my  knowledge  of  either  as  I  once 
was  —  only  the  young  think  they  know  it  all! 
There  must  be  some  subtle  connection  between 

157 


158  sketches  and  Speeches 

these  two  pastimes  for  when  golf,  like  myself, 
emigrated  from  Scotland  to  find  a  larger  sphere 
in  the  New  World,  bankers  took  to  it  like  ducks 
(or  Wall  Street  magnates)  to  water.  They  soon 
discovered  that  as  gold  is  the  reserve  strength 
of  the  bank,  so  golf  is  the  reserve  strength  of 
the  banker,  —  a  store  of  health  to  be  drawn 
upon  whenever  the  working  balance  is  im- 
paired. Golf  and  banking  are  each  to  the  other 
a  means  to  an  end.  We  do  banking  to  earn  the 
money  and  the  right  to  play  golf — we  play 
golf  to  strengthen  the  body  and  clarify  the 
mind  for  banking.  I  have  a  theory  that  a  bank- 
er is  worth  a  larger  salary  if  he  plays  golf,  be- 
cause physical  health  is  a  great  foundation  for 
mental  alertness  and  hard  work.  Every  bank, 
however,  should  maintain  at  least  one  old- 
fashioned,  serious-minded  officer  who  will  stay 
around  until  the  cash  is  safely  locked  away, 
while  the  up-to-date  officers  hurry  oflF  as  soon 
after  closing  hours  as  the  next  train  for  the  golf 
club  demands!  Every  banker  who  plays  golf 
must  have  been  struck  by  the  analogy  between 
the  Royal  and  Ancient  Game  and  the  honor- 
able profession  to  which  he  belongs.  In  the 
first  place,  both  are  characterized  by  an  appar- 
ent simplicity  covering  a  complexity  of  require- 
ments, and  offering  opportunities  for  study 


Golf  and  Ban  king  159 

that  last  through  life.  What  could  be  more  su- 
perficially simple  than  the  game  of  golf?  It  is 
merely  to  knock  a  little  ball  into  a  little  hole 
with  as  few  strokes  of  the  club  as  possible.  One 
would  suppose  that  all  that  could  happen 
would  happen  during  the  first  few  weeks  that 
such  a  game  was  played.  Nevertheless,  they 
have  been  interpreting  the  rules  to  meet  un- 
usual occurrences  for  five  hundred  years,  and 
yet  every  year  there  are  submitted  to  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Golf,  at  St.  Andrews,  ques- 
tions covering  new  problems  which  the  appel- 
late court  of  this  country  (The  U.  S.  G.  A.)  can- 
not agree  upon.  To  the  mere  on-looker  the 
game  seems  so  simple  that  it  appears  too  silly 
for  grown-up  people  to  devote  their  time  to. 
But  the  cure  for  such  a  view  is  also  simple, — 
just  let  him  try  it!  A  trial  will  disclose  the  fact 
that  the  game  calls  for  numerous  physical, 
mental  and  moral  qualities.  The  stance,  the 
grip,  the  swing,  the  follow-through,  the  direc- 
tion, the  pull,  the  slice,  the  judgment  of  dis- 
tance, the  tempering  of  force,  the  pitch  that 
falls  dead,  the  pitch  that  runs  up,  the  wrist 
shot,  the  stiff-arm  shot,  the  half  shot,  the  full 
shot  —  the  control  of  the  ball,  the  nerves,  the 
temper  and  the  heart,  —  all  these  are  subjects 
calling  for  close  study  and  long  practice  on  the 


1 6o  Sketches  and  Speeches 

part  of  any  one  who  hopes  to  master  this 
simple-looking  game.  A  library  might  be  filled 
with  the  volumes  that  have  been  written  on 
golf,  but  no  one  feels  that  the  last  word  has 
been  said,  or  the  last  lesson  learned. 

In  the  same  way,  banking  seems  so  simple  to 
the  uninitiated  that  a  bank  is  considered  a 
good  place  to  put  a  boy  that  is  not  much  use 
for  anything  else.  And  it  must  be  admitted 
that  if  the  boy  is  merely  going  to  learn  to  keep 
a  ledger  no  great  mental  qualifications  will  be 
necessary.  If,  however,  the  boy  is  to  be  a  suc- 
cessful banker  he  ought  to  begin  learning  the 
business  by  being  a  messenger — a  very  instruc- 
tive department  —  and  continue  to  learn 
something  about  it  by  the  experience  of  every 
day  of  his  life.  Successful  banking  includes  a 
knowledge  of  accounts;  of  exchange,  domestic 
and  foreign;  of  handling  collections;  of  stocks, 
bonds  and  securities;  of  bills  of  lading  and  ware- 
house receipts;  of  commercial  law  and  prac- 
tice; of  clear  correspondence  and  of  good  man- 
ners. But  expert  knowledge  of  these  technical 
subjects  will  not  make  a  banker.  The  peculiar 
qualifications  of  a  competent  banker  can  only 
be  acquired  by  experience,  and  some  of  them 
only  by  sorrowful  experience.  The  highest  func- 
tion of  a  banker  is  to  understand  and  dispense 


Golf  and  Banking  1 6 1 

credit,  and  knowledge  of  human  nature  lies  at 
the  foundation  of  its  successful  operation. 

To  judge  your  applicant  for  a  loan  from  the 
way  he  puts  it  up  to  you  requires  a  sixth  sense, 
developed  only  by  experience.  Terms  of  credit 
are  so  constantly  stated  in  terms  of  money 
that  few  people  clearly  distinguish  between  the 
two.  But  in  these  days  of  gigantic  war  opera- 
tions the  distinction  should  be  plain  to  every 
one.  All  the  money  in  England  would  not  car- 
ry on  her  war  operations  for  a  month.  But  her 
credit  has  carried  them  on  for  nearly  three 
years,  and  will  carry  them  on  for  years  to 
come,  if  need  be.  Credit  is  the  life-blood  of  all 
modern  business,  and  the  banks  are  the  hearts 
from  which  it  pulsates.  To  guide  it  into  proper 
channels,  to  keep  it  fluent  and  unpolluted  so 
that  it  may  carry  health  to  the  minutest  intri- 
cacies of  the  complicated  business  by  which 
mankind  lives  —  that  is  the  task  of  the  bank- 
er. In  short,  he  is  a  creator  and  dealer  in  credit. 

Did  you  ever  consider  what  a  new  bank 
might  do  the  first  day  of  its  existence?  Let  us 
suppose  that  the  bank  starts  with  a  paid  in 
capital  of  1 100,000.  And  let  us  further  sup- 
pose that  it  has  arranged  to  accept  the  ac- 
counts of  forty  customers,  granting  to  each  of 
them  a  line  of  credit  of  $10,000,  and  that  all  of 


I  6  2  sketches  and  Speeches 

these  customers  come  in  the  first  day  that  the 
bank  is  open  and  give  their  notes  for  1 10,000 
each  to  be  placed  to  their  credit.  For  the  sake  of 
illustration  we  will  suppose  that  the  bank  tran- 
sacts no  other  business  that  first  day. 

At  the  close  of  the  day's  work  the  new  bank 
will  have  the  following  balance  sheet: 

ASSETS 

Loans  and  Bills  Receivable  .  .  .  $400,000.00 
Cash  on  hand 100,000.00 

Total $500,000.00 

LIABILITIES 

Capital  paid  in 1 100,000.00 

Deposits 400,000.00 

Total $500,000.00 

It  will  thus  have  cash  reserves  of  25  per  cent  — 
a  good  condition  —  and  it  will  have  created 
$400,000  in  loans  and  $400,000  in  deposits 
without  using  a  dollar  of  its  capital.  Its  loans 
will  be  pieces  of  printed  paper  with  signatures 
on  them,  and  its  deposits  will  be  just  what 
deposits  always  are  —  figures  on  a  ledger.  It 
will  also  have  earned  certain  profits  in  a  dis- 


Golf  and  Banking  163 

count  account  —  figures  on  a  ledger  —  so 
small,  however,  that  I  omitted  them  from  the 
balance  sheet  as  of  no  consequence!  Indeed, 
after  long  experience,  I  wonder  sometimes  if, 
after  all,  as  a  banker,  I  have  done  anything  but 
monkey  with  figures  on  a  ledger!  And  this  re- 
minds me  of  some  old  gentlemen's  scores  at  golf 
which  are  sometimes  merely  figures  on  a  card ! 

Wide  business  intelligence  is  also  required  to 
understand  the  variety  of  enterprises  demand- 
ing credit  for  all  kinds  of  purposes.  A  lumber- 
man is  concerned  with  lumber,  an  elevator 
man  with  grain,  a  steel  manufacturer  with  steel, 
and  so  on  ad  infinitum^ —  but  a  banker  is  con- 
cerned with  every  line  of  business  effort.  He  is 
also  expected  to  be  an  authority  on  the  business 
out-look;  to  see  into  the  future,  to  tell  what 
will  happen  after  the  war,  and  to  have  a  saga- 
cious opinion  ready  for  the  newspapers  on  the 
high  cost  of  living,  or  railroad  regulation,  or 
the  President's  latest  note.  Of  course  he  ought 
also  to  be  able  to  make  a  speech  suitable  to  any 
occasion!  A  business  of  such  varied  interests 
may  well  be  dignified  by  the  name  of  a  pro- 
fession, and  offers  a  field  wide  enough  to  be  a 
worthy  life-work  for  any  man. 

In  the  second  place  steadiness  is  more  de- 
sirable than  brilliancy  in  both  games.  In  golf 


164  sketches  and  Speeches 

we  are  all  familiar  with  the  man  who  plays 
better  than  he  knows  how  for  a  few  holes,  and 
the  moment  something  unforseen  happens  to 
him,  he  goes  all  to  pieces.  We  also  know  the 
terrific  driver  who  would  be  fine  if  he  could 
keep  on  the  course.  Against  such  players  the 
less  brilliant  but  more  steady  golfer,  who  may 
not  drive  a  mile,  but  who  is  always  on  the 
course,  will  win  three  times  out  of  four. 

In  the  same  way,  commend  me  to  the  con- 
servative, steady  banker  as  compared  to  the 
Napoleon  of  finance.  Every  little  while  in 
banking  we  see  a  Napoleon  acquire  a  very 
quick  reputation,  make  a  big  splurge  for  a 
while,  and  then  meet  his  Waterloo!  A  banker 
does  not  need  to  be  a  genius!  What  he  needs 
more  than  anything  else  is  common  sense, 
shrewd  deliberation,  combined  with  courage  to 
go  ahead  after  he  has  carefully  investigated  the 
road  on  which  he  is  asked  to  travel. 

One  of  my  earliest  experiences  in  banking 
was  to  look  up  to  the  Manager  of  a  bank  in 
Winnipeg  at  the  time  of  the  great  boom,  who 
used  to  have  a  line  of  people  waiting  to  see  him 
and  who  turned  them  off,  granting  or  refusing 
their  requests  for  loans,  at  the  rate  of  about 
one  every  two  minutes.  Every  one  in  Winni- 
peg, including  myself,  considered  him  a  finan- 


Golf  and  Banking  165 

cial  genius  of  the  first  order,  but  he  lasted  only 
a  short  time,  and  was  succeeded  by  a  solid, 
slow-going,  shrewd  man  who  had  to  clean  up 
the  mess  made  by  his  brilliant  predecessor,  and 
it  was  a  very  bad  mess.  Such  cases  are  common, 
and  I  merely  wish  to  point  out  that  it  is  much 
happier  to  be  the  second  man  than  the  first. 

A  third  point  is  that  a  good  golf  course  is 
equipped  with  hazards  for  the  purpose  of  lend- 
ing interest  to  the  game,  and  rendering  it  not 
too  easy  for  the  player. 

For  many  years  I  thought  that  Divine  Pro- 
vidence had  given  us  a  bad  banking  system  so 
as  to  keep  this  country  from  becoming  too 
prosperous  and  experiencing  all  of  the  moral 
evils  which  attend  too  much  prosperity.  So  we 
had  panics  with  general  suspension  on  the  part 
of  the  Banks,  and  all  the  set-back  to  business 
which  accompanied  it.  The  days  of  suspension 
are  over,  I  believe,  but  the  banker  still  has 
bunkers  in  his  course.  With  money  rates  ruling 
at  a  less  figure  than  the  money  costs,  a  contin- 
ual increase  in  expenses  and  taxes,  and  a  spirit 
of  antagonistic  control  in  Washington,  there 
is  little  danger  of  the  banker's  course  being 
made  too  easy  for  him  for  some  time  to  come. 

The  Federal  Reserve  Banks  have  established 
the  great  principle  of  concentrated  reserves  as 


1 6  6  Sketches  and  Speeches 

a  basis  for  an  elastic  currency  and  credit  system 
and  I,  for  one,  am  thankful  for  it.  They  have, 
however,  singularly  failed  as  yet  to  commend 
themselves  to  the  country  banker,  or  to  the 
great  body  of  State  Banks,  and  until  they  do, 
they  cannot  be  considered  a  national  success. 
The  chief  reason  for  this,  I  believe,  is  the  atti- 
tude on  the  part  of  what —  not  to  be  too  definite 
—  I  shall  call  Washington.  This  attitude  is 
shown  in  a  purpose  to  nag  the  banks  about  un- 
important details,  to  minimize  banking  prof- 
its, and  to  apply  the  kind  of  control  that  near- 
ly ruined  the  credit  of  the  railroads,  resulting 
in  the  lack  of  equipment  and  efficiency  from 
which  they,  and  the  country,  suffer  today.  As 
the  people  in  Washington  are  there  only  tem- 
porarily, however,  I  am  in  hopes  that  this 
phase  may  pass,  and  I  am  sure  that  the  Feder- 
al Reserve  System,  wisely  administered,  will 
prove  a  great  national  blessing,  and  a  very 
present  help  in  time  of  trouble. 

To  return  to  our  analogy.  Both  in  golf  and 
banking  there  are  the  dangers  of  water  hazards 
and  bad  lies.  Water  hazards  are  the  traps  set  to 
catch  investment  and  promotion  bankers,  and 
through  them,  the  public.  The  letting  in  and 
squeezing  out  of  "water"  in  Wall  Street  Secu- 
rities forms  quite  a  part  of  our  financial  history 


Golf  and  Banking  167 

but,  after  all,  it  is  only  incidental  to  Banking 
—  one  of  the  abuses  which  it  is  almost  impos- 
sible to  control,  and  for  which  Banking  is  not 
alone  responsible. 

Bad  lies,  on  the  other  hand,  are  the  cause  of 
most  of  our  commercial  banking  losses.  I  sup- 
pose this  is  to  be  expected  so  long  as  we  base 
our  credits  chiefly  on  the  borrowers'  own  state- 
ments of  their  assets  and  liabilities. 

I  know  that  a  statement  to  induce  the  bank 
to  grant  credit,  and  a  statement  a  little  later  to 
induce  the  creditors  to  accept  a  composition 
settlement  must  be  difl^erent  because  the  point 
of  view  is  changed;  but  how  seldom  we  have  a 
failure  where  the  debtor  has  at  least  told  the 
truth!  Experienced  bankers  know  an  unsound 
financial  statement  when  they  see  one,  and  if 
borrowers  who  begin  to  go  behind  would  tell 
the  truth,  not  only  the  bankers  would  be 
spared  losses,  but  the  borrowers  would  fre- 
quently be  saved  by  timely  advice  and  help. 
False  statements  are  a  crying  evil,  and  if  they 
could  be  eliminated  it  would  be  the  greatest 
benefit  to  our  business. 

Two  things  may  be  done:  First,  we  should 
encourage  the  business  of  Chartered  Public 
Accountants  more  and  more.  If  borrowers' 
paper  is  to  be  bought  on  the  street  with  prac- 


I  6  8  Sketches  and  Speeches 

tically  no  profit,  surely  the  least  they  can  do  is 
to  furnish  the  buyer,  through  the  broker,  with  a 
certified  accountant's  statement.  An  insurance 
company  will  loan  its  money  only  after  weeks 
of  thorough  investigation  —  and  then  only  on 
property  worth  at  least  twice  the  amount  of 
the  loan.  But  a  banker  frequently  loans  money 
without  security  after  a  moment's  conversa- 
tion over  the  telephone,  on  paper  made  by 
people  he  never  saw,  basing  his  action  chiefly 
on  a  few  figures  furnished  by  the  borrower 
himself. 

Second,  we  should  work  for  legislation  by 
the  various  States  which  would  make  it  easier 
to  punish  the  obtaining  of  credit  by  means  of 
false  statements. 

Before  leaving  this  subject,  however,  let  me 
say  that  the  constant  wonder  to  me  is  not  that 
we  lose  so  much  money,  but  that  we  lose  so 
little  considering  our  liberal  way  of  doing  busi- 
ness, and  the  keen  competition  that  exists  in 
banking.  The  losses  of  a  competently  managed 
bank  do  not  exceed  one-quarter  of  one  percent 
of  the  total  loans, —  a  fact  that  indicates,  as  I 
believe,  that  the  great  body  of  average  Amer- 
ican business  men  are  honest  and  reliable. 

Once  more,  the  most  important  of  all  golf 
precepts  is  "keep  your  eye  on  the  ball  and  fol- 


Golf  and  Banking  1 6  9 

low  through."  In  other  words,  concentrate  on 
the  object  in  view,  and  follow  that  object  to 
the  last  ounce  of  effort.  Play  your  own  game. 
Do  not  worry  about  the  other  competitors  in 
the  running.  If  they  play  better  golf,  and  beat 
your  score,  well  and  good  —  but  see  that  your 
score  is  creditable  to  yourself.  In  this  way  you 
will  get  honorable  mention,  even  if  the  prize 
goes  to  some  one  else.  Perhaps  in  no  other 
business  is  there  keener  competition  than  in 
banking  in  this  country.  Our  system,  forbid- 
ding for  the  most  part  the  opening  of  branches, 
has  resulted  in  a  great  number  of  individual, 
competing  banks,  and  the  strange  thing  is  that 
the  general  public  judges  the  success  of  a  bank 
by  the  size  of  its  liabilities, —  that  is,  its  de- 
posits. Even  one's  own  directors,  when  they 
compliment  one  (or  the  reverse)  on  the  show- 
ing made  for  the  "call"  just  published,  seldom 
go  deeper  than  the  increase  or  decrease  in  the 
deposits.  This  is  natural.  The  size  of  the  figures 
is  the  first  indication  of  success.  But  we  all 
know  that  real  success  is  only  to  be  found  in 
the  Profit  and  Loss  Account.  Nevertheless,  we 
are  all  open  to  the  temptation  of  the  superficial 
showing  made  by  deposits, —  and  we  are  all 
inclined  to  think  sometimes  that  our  competi- 
tors are  not  so  anxious  to  make  profits  as  they 


170  sketches  and  Speeches 

are  to  please  their  customers, —  especially 
those  who  have  one  account  with  them  and 
another  with  us.  Here  is  where  we  may  learn 
something  from  the  successful  golfer.  Let  us 
play  our  own  game.  Let  us  determine  that  our 
object  is  to  build  up  a  clean  bank,  profitable  to 
the  shareholders,  and  having  "teed"  that  ball, 
let  us  keep  our  eye  on  it  and  follow  through. 
Others  may  beat  us  in  the  race,  but  if  we  fol- 
low that  course  the  outcome  cannot  fail  to  be 
creditable  to  us. 

Among  the  blessings  with  which  golf  has  en- 
riched our  American  life  there  is  none  greater 
than  the  stimulus  it  has  been  to  the  growth  of 
Friendship.  Before  the  advent  of  golf  it  was  a 
standing  criticism  of  our  busy  life  that  there 
was  little  room  in  it  for  Friendship,  and  that 
such  as  there  was  was  prompted  by  business  or 
selfish  consideration,  which,  of  course,  was  no 
friendship  at  all.  Whatever  foundation  there 
was  for  such  criticism,  it  is  certain  that  friend- 
ship born  of  a  common  interest  in  the  grand 
old  game,  and  cemented  by  the  opportunities 
for  mutual  understanding  and  esteem  which  it 
affords,  is  now  a  prominent  characteristic  of 
American  business  and  professional  life.  Is 
there  anything  nearer  happiness  in  this  world 
than  four  congenial  golf  affinities  —  I  am  not 


Golf  and  Banking  171 

referring  to  that  abomination,  the  "mixed 
foursome" —  but  to  four  male  friends  playing 
a  keen  game  on  a  good  course  on  a  day  in  June? 
But  what  of  our  analogy  ?  Can  the  same  benef- 
icent influence  be  claimed  for  banking?  Most 
assuredly  it  can!  I  am  aware  that  loans  based 
on  friendship  alone  are  usually  poor  loans  and 
that  a  banker  who  cannot  refuse  an  improper 
loan  to  a  personal  friend  is  a  weak  character. 
But  that  is  no  reason  why  a  banker  may  not 
have  a  good  customer  and  a  good  friend  in  one 
person.  Indeed  the  proper  relation  between  the 
two  should  always  be  of  a  truly  friendly  nature, 
—  frank,  confidential,  intimate,  and  mutually 
trusting.  And  it  is  a  pleasant  part  of  modern 
banking  as  well  as  of  other  lines  of  business 
that  associations  and  clubs  such  as  this  have 
largely  done  away  with  the  narrow  rivalries 
and  jealousies  that  formerly  existed  between 
competitors,  and  that  they  too  find  it  possible 
to  be  friends. 

Still  another  point  in  our  little  analogy  is 
that  in  golf,  so  in  banking,  as  well  as  in  life 
generally,  a  man's  greatest  danger  of  non- 
success  lies  within  himself.  He  will  avoid  most 
of  the  hazards,  or  get  out  of  them  without 
greatly  affecting  the  score  if  he  plays  a  straight 
steady  game.  Luck  has  some  place  both  in  golf 


172  sketches  and  Speeches 

and  in  banking, —  but  it  in  a  minor  place.  I 
have  known  many  banks  to  make  serious  losses 
by  reason  of  the  misrepresentation  of  others, 
but  I  have  never  known  a  bank  to  fail  except 
by  reason  of  the  banker's  own  wrong-doing. 
In  every  case  that  has  come  under  my  obser- 
vation the  bank  would  not  have  failed  if  the 
officers  had  kept  their  own  private  interests 
separate  from  the  bank's  loans.  The  danger 
line  in  banking  is  crossed  when  the  banker  and 
the  borrower  get  into  one  skin.  It  takes  two  to 
make  a  game  of  golf —  a  lone  player  has  no 
rights — and  it  takes  at  least  two — a  borrower 
and  a  lender — to  make  a  proper  bank  loan. 

I  have  always  advocated  a  law  forbidding  a 
bank  officer,  under  heavy  penalties,  from  being 
directly  or  indirectly  interested  in  any  of  the 
loans  of  his  bank.  Such  a  law,  rigorously  en- 
forced, would  in  time  silence  the  cry  for  greater 
security  to  the  depositors,  and  probably  save 
us  from  unsound  or  vicious  legislation  with 
that  object  in  view. 

Finally,  golf  is  a  game  of  honor.  Of  course  all 
games  are,  or  should  be,  games  of  honor;  but 
in  golf  you  trust  your  opponent  out  of  your 
sight  and  do  not  watch  him.  If  you  should  ever 
discover  that  he  cheated,  you  would  have  no 
further  use  for  him  in  any  relation  of  life. 


Golf  and  Banking  173 

In  like  manner,  while  all  kinds  of  business 
should  be  conducted  in  an  honorable  way,  there 
are  special  obligations  in  that  respect  imposed 
upon  the  banking  business.  As  already  stated, 
it  is  the  heart  of  the  great  modern  credit  sys- 
tem. If  the  heart  is  sound,  and  the  circulation 
good,  general  health  is  almost  assured.  Certain- 
ly there  is  nothing  so  bad  for  general  business 
as  bad  banking.  It  breeds  careless  credits,  and 
slip-shod  methods  in  any  community,  and  it 
is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  soundness  of 
any  modern  civilization  is  largely  dependent 
upon  the  honor  and  integrity  of  its  bankers. 
They  are  the  trustees  to  whom  the  poor  entrust 
their  savings  that  they  may  be  loaned  to  the 
rich.  The  standard  of  integrity  for  such  a  busi- 
ness cannot  be  placed  too  high.  A  banker's 
honesty  must  not  be  a  matter  of  question. 
Nothing  tricky,  underhanded,  or  crooked  on  his 
part  should  be  condoned.  Unless  he  is  natural- 
ly straightforward,  he  should  not  be  in  thebank- 
ing  business.  In  banking,  as  in  golf,  have  no 
dealings  with  the  men  you  cannot  fully  trust. 
For  me,  at  least,  there  is  no  game  better  than 
golf,  and  no  business  higher  than  banking. 
Golf  is  a  science, —  the  study  of  a  lifetime,  in 
which  you  may  exhaust  yourself  but  never 
your  subject.  It  is  a  contest,  a  duel  or  a  melee, 


174  Sketches  and  Speeches 

calling  for  courage,  skill,  strategy  and  self-con- 
trol. It  is  a  test  of  temper,  a  trial  of  honor,  a 
reveal er  of  character.  It  affords  the  chance  to 
play  the  man,  and  act  the  gentleman.  It  means 
going  out  into  God's  out-of-doors, —  getting 
close  to  nature,  fresh  air,  exercise,  a  sweeping 
away  of  the  mental  cobwebs,  genuine  re-crea- 
tion of  the  tired  tissues.  It  is  a  cure  for  care  — 
an  antidote  to  worry.  It  includes  companion- 
ship with  friends,  social  intercourse,  oppor- 
tunity for  courtesy,  kindliness  and  generosity 
to  an  opponent.  It  promotes  not  only  physical 
health  but  moral  force. 

Banking  as  a  profession  is  second  to  none  in 
importance  and  power  within  commercial  lines. 
It  appeals  to  the  ambition  of  great  minds. 
There  is  scarcely  any  limit  to  its  possibilities. 
Many  of  the  most  colossal  fortunes  in  the 
world  have  been  honorably  made  in  its  pur- 
suit. Its  credit  system  binds  the  whole  world 
together  by  invisible  cords  of  mutual  interest 
and  confidence,  and  is  a  prime  promotor  of 
peace.  Alas  these  ties  have  been  sadly  broken 
of  late!  In  its  humbler  manifestations  it  en- 
courages industry  and  thrift,  opposes  lawless- 
ness and  makes  for  good  citizenship. 

And  so,  busy  brother  bankers,  our  lives,  if 
not  set  to  the  very  highest  tasks,  may  at  least 


Golf  and  Banking  175 

be  useful  to  our  fellow  men  and  honoring  to 
ourselves ! 

The  life  of  a  successful  banker,  though  main- 
ly devoted  to  lending  money  and  getting  it 
back  again  —  naturally  a  hardening  process  — 
need  not  be  a  sordid  one.  He,  too,  may  have  his 
ideal  which,  however  unattainable,  is  the  mark 
at  which  he  aims,  and  to  which  he  aspires. 

An  ideal  may  be  constructed  by  assembling 
the  good  qualities  and  eliminating  the  faults  of 
many  men.  Applying  this  formula  our  ideal 
banker  would  be  something  like  this:  —  A  man 
of  good  presence, —  not  so  young  as  to  be 
''smart"  nor  so  old  as  to  be  stale  —  a  man  with 
plenty  of  successful  experience  behind  him, 
but  one  who  is  still  forward-looking.  His  face 
has  the  lines  of  firmness  and  decision,  but  is 
saved  from  hardness  by  kindly  eyes  and  apleas- 
ant  smile.  His  manner  is  courteous,  and  indi- 
cates rather  an  inclination  to  grant  a  request 
than  to  refuse  one.  Even  when  he  says  "No" 
he  recognizes  that  special  courtesy  is  required 
to  make  it  inoffensive.  Any  one  can  say  "Yes" 
courteously!  He  promises  rather  less  than  he 
performs, —  never  more.  His  word  may  be 
hard  to  obtain,  but  once  given  it  is  never 
broken.  He  enjoys  the  absolute  confidence  of 
his  directors  from  whom  he  has  no  secrets.  He 


176  sketches  and  Speeches 

is  the  financial  doctor  and  father-confessor 
of  his  customers  who  consult  him  instinctively. 
His  employes  look  up  to  him  with  respect, 
touched  by  affection.  He  stands  in  his  commu- 
nity for  progress  and  integrity  in  business,  civic, 
and  social  affairs.  He  is  devoted  to  business, 
but  not  enslaved  by  money.  He  is  captain  of 
his  own  soul,  and  keeps  it  above  business  —  free 
from  sordidness  and  meanness.  He  knows  that 
a  man's  life  consisteth  not  in  the  abundance  of 
the  things  which  he  possesseth,  and  he  cares 
for  the  more  excellent  things  of  the  spirit. 

*'The  grace  of  friendship,  mind  and  heart 
Linked  with  their  fellow  heart  and  mind, 
T'he  gains  of  science,  gifts  of  art, 
'The  sense  of  oneness  with  our  kind. 
A  thirst  to  know  and  understand  — 
A  large  and  liberal  discontent. 
These  are  the  gifts  in  life's  rich  hand. 
The  things  that  are  more  excellent.'' 

Lastly,  our  ideal  banker  plays  golf  —  two  or 
three  times  a  week  at  his  prime.  As  the  years 
pass  he  does  less  business  and  plays  more  golf; 
and  old  age  —  robbed  of  its  terrors  by  the 
grand  old  game  —  finds  him  looking  back  con- 
tentedly on  a  well-spent  life.  And  when  the 


Golf  and  Banking  177 

hour  of  "sunset  and  evening  star"  draws  on, 
and  the  shadows  begin  to  lengthen  about  him. 
he  can  look  forward  with  the  quiet  courage 
that  has  characterized  his  whole  life,  and  say 
with  the  aged  Whittier  — 

"/  know  not  where  His  islands  lift 
Their fronded  palms  in  air; 
I  only  know  I  cannot  drift 
Beyond  His  love  and  care. 
And  so  beside  the  silent  sea 
I  wait  the  muffied  oar 
I  know  no  harm  can  come  to  me. 
From  Him  on  land  or  shore.'' 


SPEECHES    V 

INTKODUCTION  TO 
GENERAL  DA  WES 


Following  some  other  remarks; 
Country  Club,  Evanston,  191 9 


i^^^^i^^t^^^^  ^  '^^^  "*^^  come  here  to  make  a 
^pS^i^^^S  speech.  My  very  pleasant  duty 

BJ®  is  only  to  present  to  you  the 


.Ml    ^~^    ^p  three  men  who  are  to  address 

First:  There  is  Charles  G. 
Dawes,  engineer,  lawyer,  banker,  gas-magnate, 
philanthropist  and  public-spirited  citizen.  He 
is  one  of  the  foremost  men  in  the  great  city  of 
Chicago,  and  has  a  national  reputation  as  a 
financier  and  business  man  —  having  served 
his  country  as  Comptroller  of  the  Currency, 
made  a  huge  success  in  private  business,  built 
up  from  its  inception  one  of  our  great  Banks, 
given  largely  of  his  time  and  money  to  philan- 

179 


I  8  o  Sketches  and  Speeches 

thropy,  and  been  a  leader  in  many  political 
movements,  both  civic  and  national. 

Then,  second,  there  is  Brig.  Gen'l.  Dawes, 
—  the  man,  who,  when  his  country  needed 
him,  dropped  all  of  his  manifold  personal  inter- 
ests and  offered  his  services  for  the  Great  War. 
In  that  war  we  discovered  that  there  are  some 
jobs  that  require  military  training,  and  some 
that  require  business  training.  To  know  how  to 
handle  men  on  the  field  of  battle  is  one  thing  — 
and  a  supremely  important  thing.  To  know 
how  to  supply  these  men  with  food,  clothing, 
ammunition  and  all  the  numerous  require- 
ments of  the  modern  soldier  is  another  thing. 
To  do  that  requires  some  one  who  will  cut 
through  red  tape,  make  decisions,  take  respon- 
sibility and  get  things  done.  And,  therefore,  it 
was  not  long  before  General  Dawes  was  found 
to  be  the  right  man  to  fill  the  place  of  Com- 
mander of  the  S.  O.  S. —  the  Service  of  Sup- 
ply. The  universal  verdict  is  that  he  handled 
that  great  task  with  comsummate  skill  and 
ability,  and  that  the  American  Army  was  al- 
ways well  fed  and  well  supplied.  And  so  he  did 
his  great  bit  in  the  colossal  struggle,  cov- 
ered his  name  with  international  distinction, 
and  earned  the  honors  of  which  we  are  all  so 
proud  and  he  is  so  modest. 


Introduction  to  Dawes         i  8  i 

And,  Thirds  there  is  Charlie  Dawes  —  our 
friend  and  neighbor  —  musical,  jolly,  generous 
Charlie  Dawes,  who  has  done  so  many  kind 
things,  who  has  helped  so  many  young  men  on, 
who  has  raised  and  reformed  so  many  after 
mistakes  and  failures,  whose  heart  and  purse 
are  ever  open  to  distress  or  want.  I  don't  know 
what  the  "G"  in  his  name  stands  for,  but  I 
have  often  thought  it  stands  for  Bunyan's 
character  of  "Great  Heart."  For  this  man  has 
never  been  narrowed  or  hardened  by  avarice, 
and  has  always  found  time  to  do  good.  Even 
at  the  height  of  his  hard  work,  and  under  the 
strain  of  his  great  responsibilities  in  Paris,  he 
found  opportunity  and  time  to  do  the  kindest 
things,  as  I,  who  had  a  daughter  there  in  deep 
distress,  can  testify. 

These  three  men  —  all  in  one  skin  —  make 
a  personality  and  a  character  for  whom  no  job 
within  the  gift  of  this  nation  is  too  big  —  and 
it  is  now  my  great  pleasure  and  honor  to  pre- 
sent him  to  you  as  the  Guest  of  Honor  and 
Speaker  of  the  evening, 

Mr.  Dawes. 


SPEECHES    VI 


TJ^E    DUTY    OF    T/IE 

BANKEH    AND     TJ^E 

BUSINESS   MAN   IN 

WAH    FINANCE 

A  Speech  Delivered  to  the  Convention 

of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  of  the  United  States, 

Chicago,  June  i,   1918 


m'j^vERY  nation  has  three  lines  of 
^m  defense.   They  may   be   called 


W^    T7    W^  Wisdom,    Might    and    Money' 
®    ^    IS  When     Wisdom     has     failed 


__  failed, 

^^S®  through  diplomatic  means,  to 
settle  a  difficulty  with  another 
country  the  relations  with  that  country  are 
broken  off,  and  recourse  is  had  to  the  second 
line  of  defense  —  Might,  the  Might  of  the 
manhood  of  the  nation.  This  resource  of  the 
nation,  however  willing  or  patriotic,  cannot 
make  a  single  move  without  the  support  of  the 

183 


184  sketches  and  Speeches 

third  line — Money.  To  wage  war  on  a  modern 
scale,  enormous  sums  of  money  must  be  raised 
by  any  first-class  nation  engaged  in  conflict. 

War  is  a  great  test  of  character.  This  nation 
is  being  tested  now.  We  failed  in  our  Wisdom. 
Our  diplomacy  which  was  exercised  for  the 
purpose  of  keeping  us  out  of  the  Great  World 
War  failed  of  its  object.  It  failed  because  of  the 
unscrupulous  character  of  the  enemy.  But  we 
have  not  failed  in  our  second  line  of  defense. 
Already  we  have  an  army  in  France,  and 
1,500,000  of  our  bravest  and  best,  earnestly 
training  for  what  lies  before  them  and  anxious 
to  be  there.  We  have  not  failed  in  our  manhood. 

The  question  now  is,  are  we  going  to  fail  in 
our  third  line  of  defense  —  Money?  We  have 
not  failed  so  far.  The  largest  single  loan  ever 
put  out  by  this  nation  before  the  present  war 
was  $198,000,000  for  the  Spanish-American 
War.  And  now  we  have  successfully  put 
through  three  Liberty  Loans  —  the  first  of 
$2,000,000,000  and  the  second  of  $3, 8000,000,- 
000,  while  a  third  loan  of  $3,000,000,000  has 
just  been  oversubscribed  by  $1,166,000,000. 

Early  Estimates  as  to  War's  Duration 

When  this  war  was  started  financiers  were 
generally  of  the  opinion  that  it  could  not  be 


War  Finance  185 

waged  on  the  modern  scale  for  more  than  six 
months,  or  possibly  a  year.  But  here  we  are,  in 
the  fourth  year  of  the  war,  and  there  seems  to 
be  no  sign  of  it  coming  to  an  end  from  financial 
exhaustion.  The  question  naturally  arises  — 
Where  does  all  of  the  money  come  from  to  be 
loaned  in  such  enormous  sums  to  the  various 
governments  engaged  in  the  war?  An  answer 
to  this  question  puzzles  many  minds.  The  an- 
swer, however,  is  simple  enough.  The  money 
does  not  come  from  anywhere.  It  is  not  a 
money  transaction.  It  is  a  credit  transaction. 
Unfortunately  the  terms  of  credit  are  stated 
and  measured  by  terms  of  money.  We  bankers 
constantly  speak  of  loaning  money  to  our  cus- 
tomers, whereas  we  really  loan  them  the  bank's 
credit.  For  example:  When  a  customer's  note 
for  $1,000  is  discounted  by  a  bank,  and  the 
proceeds  placed  to  the  customer's  credit,  that 
bank's  loans  and  that  bank's  deposits  are  im- 
mediately increased  by  $1,000,  but  there  is 
not  a  dollar  more  or  less  money  in  the  bank 
than  before  the  customer  offered  his  note.  The 
bank,  without  the  use  of  any  money  whatever, 
has  created  a  credit  of  $1,000,  which  serves 
the  purpose  of  money  to  the  borrower.  What 
the  bank's  customer  does  on  a  small  scale,  the 
Government  is  doing  on  an  enormous  scale. 


I  8  6  Sketches  and  Speeches 

The  bank  customer's  note  is  only  a  scrap  of 
paper,  but  it  represents  the  property,  the  char- 
acter and  the  honor  of  the  maker.  A  Govern- 
ment Bond  costs  only  the  engraver's  bill  to 
produce,  but  it  stands  for  all  the  taxable  prop- 
erty, the  character  and  the  honor  of  the 
American  people.  But  there  will  be  neither 
more  nor  less  money  in  the  country  after  the 
present  Government  loan  has  been  floated  than 
there  is  today. 

Modern  Credit  System 

The  Modern  Credit  System  deals  in  a  kind 
of  element  closely  akin  to  water.  This  is  why 
we  talk  of  liquid  assets  or  the  floating  of  a  loan. 
The  modern  credit  system  may,  therefore,  be 
likened  to  a  sea  on  which  there  are  already  a- 
float  many  credit  craft.  All  national  debts,  all 
international  trade  balances,  all  the  stocks  and 
bonds  dealt  in  on  all  the  stock  exchanges  of 
the  world,  all  bank  loans,  all  bank  deposits,  all 
paper  money,  all  bills  and  accounts  receivable 
or  payable  —  all  of  these  may  be  said  to  be 
vessels  already  afloat  on  this  sea  of  credit.  The 
question,  therefore,  is  not,  where  does  the 
money  come  from,  but  is  there  still  room  in  this 
sea  of  credit  for  another  vessel  of  tremendous 
proportions  ?  If  there  is,  it  may  be  safely  floated. 


War  Finance  187 

Now  the  Credit  System  is  in  the  hands  of 
the  bankers  —  public  and  private.  Just  as 
production  is  in  the  hands  of  the  farmer,  the 
miner  and  the  manufacturer — just  as  trans- 
portation is  in  the  hands  of  the  railroad  man, 
so  credit  is  in  the  control  of  the  banker.  In  war 
time  this  is  a  heavy  responsibility.  As  a  whole, 
bankers  —  chartered  and  private  —  have  so 
far  stood  the  test  splendidly.  And  whereas  the 
farmer  and  manufacturer  are  being  allowed  at 
least  double  their  normal  profits  for  anything 
they  do  for  the  Government,  the  bankers  have 
given  their  time,  their  organizations  and  their 
best  efforts  to  providing  the  Government  with 
credit,  not  only  without  any  remuneration, 
but  at  considerable  expense  and  loss.  While 
this  is  unfair,  and  quite  at  variance  with  the 
practice  of  our  Allies,  it  is  all  the  more  honor 
to  American  bankers. 

All  Energies  Devoted  to  Country 

But  with  or  without  remuneration  it  is  the 
duty  of  all  banks  and  bankers  to  devote  their 
resources,  and  bend  their  energies  to  the  ut- 
most in  floating  these  enormous  Government 
loans.  And  this  must  be  done  without  undue 
restriction  ot  credit  to  their  ordinary  customers 
so  that  general  business  may  be  active  and 


I  8  8  Sketches  and  Speeches 

profitable  as  a  basis  for  the  sound  financial  con- 
ditions which  must  prevail  if  the  war  is  to  be 
won.  What  is  needed  is  the  most  extensive  co- 
operation between  the  public  and  the  banks. 
The  banks  cannot  do  it  alone.  The  public, 
aided  by  the  banks,  must  take  the  greater  part 
of  the  bonds.  If  they  do  not,  the  banks  will  be 
compelled  to  take  them.  But  should  that  hap- 
pen, commercial  credit  would  have  to  be  so 
curtailed  that  the  public  would  suffer  greater 
inconvenience  and  much  greater  loss  than  if 
they  took  the  bonds  in  co-operation  with  the 
banks.  The  undertaking  is  a  mutual  one.  To 
the  extent  that  the  banker  induces  his  custo- 
mer to  buy  the  bonds,  the  banks  will  be  re- 
lieved from  taking  them,  and  to  the  same  ex- 
tent they  will  be  able  to  continue  commercial 
credits  to  their  borrowing  customers. 

In  accomplishing  these  great  tasks  which 
lie  before  them,  banks  will  be  forced  to  great 
expansion  —  inflation,  if  you  like  —  of  credit. 
With  costs  doubled,  business  cannot  be  main- 
tained and  the  Government  supplied  with  ad- 
ditional billions  without  great  expansion  of 
credit.  In  a  word,  the  war  will  be  lost,  and  all 
will  be  lost,  unless  we  find  the  means  for  tre- 
mendous expansion  and  are  willing  to  use  them 
These  means,  thank  God  (I  say  it  reverently) 


fVar  Finance  189 

are  ready  at  hand.  The  Federal  Reserve  Sys- 
tem, adopted  since  the  war  broke  out,  pro- 
vides ample  means.  Can  any  banker  imagine 
where  we  would  now  be  without  the  Federal 
Reserve  Banks  ?  Can  any  one  imagine  floating 
a  five  or  six  billion  Liberty  Loan  on  a  suspend- 
ed banking  system  ?  Then  let  us  not  only  thank 
God  for  the  means  —  but  let  us  not  be  afraid 
to  use  them.  One  of  the  hardest-dying  preju- 
dices among  bankers  is  that  against  showing 
rediscounts  or  bills  payable.  It  is  dying  in  the 
centers,  but  still  very  much  alive  in  the  coun- 
try towns.  It  must  be  overcome  if  the  country 
banker  is  to  do  his  full  share  in  support  of  the 
Government.  Instead  of  a  subject  for  crit- 
icism it  should  be  a  badge  of  honor  to  show 
rediscounts,  or  bills  payable  in  connection  with 
the  floating  of  Liberty  Loans. 

Use  of  Credit  in  Bond  Purchases 

On  the  other  hand,  the  question  which 
every  loyal  American  business  man  must  ask 
himself  is  not  — "Have  I,  or  has  my  firm  or 
my  corporation,  any  money  to  spare  for  Gov- 
ernment bonds  ?"  Few  business  men  have  much 
idle  money.  The  question  is,  "How  far  can  I 
use  my  individual  credit  and  the  credit  of  my 
business  with  my  bank  in   the  purchase  of 


190  sketches  and  Speeches 

Government  Bonds?"  If  he  carries  his  share 
for  some  time  he  may  lose  some  difference  in 
interest  —  a  small  sacrifice  for  patriotism  — 
but  if  he  will  carry  them  long  enough  even 
that  loss  will  be  regained  by  the  premium  the 
bonds  are  sure  to  command  after  the  war  is 
over.  It  is  going  to  be  hard  to  keep  at  par  such 
quantities  of  bonds  as  are  being  issued.  Busi- 
ness men  may  choose  to  take  the  loss  of  the 
market  discount  which  will  never  be  severe  by 
selling  their  share  of  each  issue,  and  thus  being 
ready  for  the  next.  I  know  that  such  a  course 
has  been  condemned  in  some  quarters,  but  I 
think  unwarrantably.  The  final  resting  place 
for  Government  bonds  is  in  the  strong  box  of 
the  investor.  The  funds  of  life  and  fire  insur- 
ance companies,  of  educational,  charitable  and 
benevolent  institutions,  of  rich  estates  and  of 
retired  business  men,  and  that  part  of  the  in- 
crement derived  from  former  investments 
which  the  holders  do  not  spend  —  these  are 
the  final  absorbers  of  Government  bonds. 
When  a  loan  is  floated  by  the  Government,  it 
gets  the  money  and  its  need  is  met.  Now,  if  an 
active  business  man  chooses  to  sell  his  bonds  at 
a  loss  to  some  of  the  final  absorbers  above 
noted,  and  thus  be  ready  to  take  his  proper 
share  of  the  next  loan,  I  think  he  should  be 


War  Finance  191 

commended  —  not  criticised.  This  does  not 
apply  to  the  small  saver-investor,  but  the 
same  principle  holds  good  with  commercial 
banks,  whose  funds  should  not  be  tied  up  per- 
manently in  Government  bonds  because  they 
are  needed  to  carry  on  business  undertakings 
whose  productions  the  war  demands.  It  is  as 
important  for  the  war  that  Chicago  banks  con- 
tinue loans  to  the  packers  as  it  is  that  Liberty 
loans  should  be  floated.  If  $100,000  be  the  ex- 
treme limit  that  a  business  man  can  take  care 
of  through  his  bank,  he  furnishes  the  Govern- 
ment with  that  amount  and  can  do  no  more. 
But  by  selling  as  above  suggested,  he  can  fur- 
nish the  Government  with  $100,000,  every 
time  it  needs  it,  and  if  he  is  willing  to  take  a 
loss  by  so  doing,  all  the  more  credit  to  him. 

War  Savings  Stamps,  etc. 

But  Liberty  Loans  are  not  all  of  War  Fi- 
nance. There  are  greatly  increased  taxes  to  be 
paid.  War  Savings  Stamps  to  be  sold,  and  war 
benevolences  to  be  supported. 

Increased  taxes  are  derived  from  increased 
incomes  and  increased  business  profits  —  the 
larger  the  incomes  and  the  profits,  the  greater 
the  taxes  for  war  purposes.  Yet  some  voices 
are  raised  in  favor  of  poorer  general  business. 


192  sketches  and  Speeches 

They  say  everything  not  necessary  for  the  war 
should  be  cut  down  or  cut  out.  I  do  not  think 
so.  About  the  worst  thing  that  could  happen  at 
the  present  time  would  be  a  fit  of  the  blues 
among  business  men  generally.  We  cannot 
have  ''business  as  usual."  Business  must  be 
modified  to  suit  conditions;  some  kinds  of 
business  must  suffer,  and  some  must  be  aban- 
doned but,  speaking  generally,  "better  busi- 
ness than  usual"  would  be  a  fine  thing,  and 
after  we  get  over  our  funk  I  believe  we  are 
going  to  have  it.  Business  better  than  usual 
that  we  may  pay  larger  taxes,  that  we  may  the 
more  easily  absorb  Liberty  Loans,  that  wages 
may  be  higher  and  saving  easier  for  the  mass- 
es, that  the  huge  funds  for  the  comfort  and 
help  of  our  fighting  men  may  be  freely  given! 
You  cannot  finance  a  war  on  a  psychology  of 
gloom.  Whatever  may  be  necessary  in  individ- 
ual exceptional  cases,  therefore,  I  think  every 
effort  should  be  made  for  the  encouragement 
of  business  as  a  whole. 

Business  is  never  the  most  important  thing 
in  life.  It  should  never  be  more  than  the  means 
to  an  end.  The  all-important  thing  now  is  to 
win  the  war.  All  business  must  be  subordinated 
to  that  end.  The  banker's  duty  is  clear.  He 
must  give  himself,  his  bank,  his  influence,  his 


War  Finance  193 

credit  to  the  Country's  Cause.  The  duty  of  the 
business  man  is  equally  clear.  He  must  use  the 
means  offered  him  by  our  new  elastic  banking 
system  and  be  willing  to  go  into  debt,  at  least 
temporarily,to  the  limit  of  his  resources  in  order 
that  the  Government's  necessities  may  be 
promptly  met.  His  part  can  never  be  as  glo- 
rious as  that  of  the  soldier  who  offers  his  all, 
but  it  is  splendidly  practical  and  patriotic,  for 
without  it  the  soldier's  heroism  would  be  in 
vain.  This  is  no  time  to  take  counsel  of  timid 
prejudices.  We  must  go  forward  boldly  with 
broadened  minds  and  enlarged  vision  if  we  are 
to  carry  our  share  of  the  great  task  which 
confronts  our  country  and  its  Allies  —  the 
task  of  destroying  the  spirit  of  autocracy,  con- 
quest and  oppression  and  establishing  on 
lasting  foundations  self-government,  justice 
and  liberty. 


SPEECHES   VII 

INTI(ODUCING 
MAKSJ^AL  J  OFFICE 

Dinner  in  His  Honor 
Commercial  Club,  Chicago,  February,  1922 


Fellow  Members^  Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

^^Vmi^m^  from  the  President  of  the  Club, 

P^ii  Mr.  Samuel  Insull,  explaining 


fe^  ^  ^p  ^^s  absence  tonight.  While  we 
^(|g^^  all  regret  Mr.  Insull's  unavoid- 
^^^^^  able    absence,    I    accept    with 

pleasure  the  duty  which  he  has  laid  upon  me 
of  appearing  in  his  stead  on  this  occasion. 

I  should  like  to  say  in  the  first  place  that 
the  selection  of  a  Scotchman  to  welcome  a  dis- 
tinguished Frenchman  is  not  at  all  inappro- 
priate, for  readers  of  the  History  of  France  and 
Scotland  know  that  a  friendship  of  a  very  real 
kind  has  existed  between  the  two  countries  for 

195 


196  sketches  and  Speeches 

centuries.  In  the  days  of  long  ago  they  fre- 
quently made  common  cause  against  England, 
and  when  "Knighthood  was  in  Flower"  and 
the  only  profession  worthy  of  a  gentleman 
was  that  of  Arms,  young  Scotchmen  frequently 
offered  their  swords  to  France  so  that  they 
might  learn  their  business  and  possibly  achieve 
distinction  in  their  profession.  Sometimes  they 
were  accompanied  by  bands  of  ragged,  but 
sturdy,  followers  who  could  fight  like  the  dev- 
il, and  subsist  for  weeks  on  a  little  bag  of  oat- 
meal! Inter-marriages  between  the  two  coun- 
tries in  those  days  were  of  frequent  occurrence. 
The  first  marriage  of  Mary  Queen  of  Scots  to 
the  dauphin  (afterwards  the  King)  of  France 
was  one  of  the  links  between  the  two  countries, 
and  her  tragic  story  still  appeals  to  romantic 
hearts  in  both.  The  result  of  all  of  this  was,  as 
I  have  already  stated,  that  a  very  real  and  en- 
during friendship  was  established  between  the 
French  and  the  Scotch. 

It  may  interest  you  to  know  what  more  than 
one  Frenchman  has  told  me  —  that  there  is  a 
proverb  common  in  France  "Genereux  comme 
un  Ecossais"  which  (as  you  probably  do  not 
follow  my  French)  means  "Generous  as  a 
Scotchman. "  Whether  the  French  are  more  dis- 
cerning than  other  people,  or  whether  they 


Introducing  Marshal  Joffre     197 

are  given  to  satire  in  their  proverbs,  I  have 
never  cared  to  ascertain! 

There  is  another  international  friendship, 
however,  more  pertinent  to  this  occasion  —  the 
friendship  between  France  and  the  United 
States  of  America  which  was  established  at 
the  birth  of  this  nation,  and  which  has  now 
flourished  uninterruptedly  for  a  century  and  a 
half. 

It  is  true  that  some  slight  misunderstand- 
ings at  the  recent  Conference  on  the  Limita- 
tion of  Armaments  beclouded  this  friendship 
for  a  moment,  but  this  has  passed  away.  The 
treaties  have  been  agreed  to,  the  sun  of  inter- 
national friendship  again  shines  brightly,  and 
while  we  must  not  expect  too  much  from  the 
results  of  the  Conference,  I  think  it  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  a  step  forward  has  been 
taken  looking  to  the  time  when  Conference  and 
Conciliation  shall  take  the  place  of  blood  and 
iron  in  the  settlement  of  international  dis- 
putes. 

At  this  moment  another  International  Con- 
ference of  equal  importance  is  being  held  at 
Genoa.  Its  difficulties  are  almost  insurmount- 
able, but  we  may  hope  that  some  practicable 
business-like  way  may  be  discovered  that  will 
make  it  possible  for  the  transfer  of  some  of 


198  sketches  and  Speeches 

America's  surplus  gold  to  some  European 
countries  who  are  badly  in  need  of  its  stabi- 
lizing qualities. 

Let  me  say  that  in  my  opinion  the  recovery 
and  re-construction  that  have  already  taken 
place  in  France  are  not  generally  appreciated  in 
this  country.  France  cannot  pay  her  debt  to 
America  at  present  —  nor  can  Great  Britain 
—  but  she  is  at  work,  and  is  now  taxing  her 
people,  and  facing  her  problems  with  the  same 
courage  she  showed  in  fighting  the  war.  France 
will  pay  in  time,  and  the  sooner  a  way  is  found 
for  us  to  help  her  now,  the  sooner  will  she  be 
able  to  liquidate  her  foreign  debts. 

Friendship  is  the  key-note  of  this  happy 
occasion.  Our  Guest  of  Honor  is  not  in  this 
country  in  any  official  capacity,  and  we  are 
simply  entertaining  him  as  one  of  our  most 
distinguished  friends  from  France.  Friendship 
includes  confidence  in  each  other  and  admira- 
tion for  each  other's  qualities.  We  Americans 
believe  that  the  French  people  are  great  in 
every  department  of  human  endeavor.  In  art, 
music,  and  literature,  or  in  thrift,  industry, 
and  finance  they  have  few  equals  and  no  su- 
periors, and  they  would  all  rather  die  for  their 
country  than  leave  it.  We  are  fortunate  indeed 
to  be  the  friends  of  such  a  people. 


Introducing  Marshal  Joffre     igg 

But,  "A  friend  in  need  is  a  friend  indeed," 
and  it  was  the  happy  privilege  of  America  to 
re-pay  the  help  given  to  us  by  France  in 
achieving  our  independence  by  sending  two 
millions  of  our  bravest  and  best  to  help  France 
and  her  Allies  in  the  recent  war. 

While  America's  losses  were  light  compared 
to  those  of  France,  still  a  goodly  number  of 
American  Boys  now  lie  asleep  in  the  bosom  of 
the  country  they  helped  to  save,  constituting 
a  sacred  pledge  of  a  friendship  which  should  be 
everlasting. 

This  is  not  the  first  occasion  that  the  dis- 
tinguished guest  of  the  evening  has  honored 
us  by  his  presence  in  Chicago.  None  of  us  who 
were  present  at  the  great  meeting  in  the  Audi- 
torium when  the  Marshal  was  accompanied  by 
Mr.  Viviani,  will  ever  forget  that  historic  occa- 
sion. 

We  members  of  the  Commercial  Club  are 
proud  to  remember  that  it  was  one  of  our 
own  number,  Mr.  Edgar  A.  Bancroft,  who  so 
eloquently  and  felicitously  expressed  the  heart 
of  Chicago  at  that  time.  Mr.  Viviani  held  the 
audience  spell-bound,  although  most  of  us  did 
not  understand  the  language,  and  who  will  ever 
forget  the  thrilling  moment  when  the  great 
French  Orator  saluted  thegreat  French  Soldier  ? 


2  o  o  Sketches  and  Speeches 

But  in  our  minds  there  is  another  time  and 
scene  which  are  indelibly  connected  with  the 
name  of  the  Great  Soldier  we  are  here  to  honor. 
We  must  turn  our  minds  back  to  September 
1 9 14  —  seven  and  a  half  years  ago.  Belgium 
had  been  martyred  in  a  heroic  but  vain  at- 
tempt to  stop  the  mighty  German  host.  The 
British  "Contemptibles"  had  fought  and  re- 
treated and  fought,  and  died  in  vain.  The 
Germans  were  at  the  gates  of  Paris,  the  French 
Government  had  withdrawn  to  Bordeaux.  It 
seemed  that  the  enemy  was  about  to  succeed 
in  carrying  out  his  long-planned  short  and 
triumphant  war.  Our  hearts  were  filled  with 
fears  and  forebodings.  When  suddenly  we 
learned  in  a  laconic  message  from  the  man  we 
honor  tonight  that  he  had  rolled  the  green- 
grey  hosts  back  sixty  miles,  that  they  had  been 
driven  across  the  Aisne  and  had  been  compelled 
to  dig  themselves  into  the  mud  where  they 
were  destined  to  remain  for  many  months. 
Paris  was  saved,  France  was  saved.  The  Allied 
Cause  was  saved  —  Government  of  the  people, 
by  the  people,  for  the  people  had  not  perished 
from  the  earth. 

It  was  the  result  of  a  stroke  of  strategic 
genius  of  the  first  order.  How  it  was  accom- 
plished is  still  so  much  of  a  mystery  that  it  has 


Introducing  Marshal  Joffre     201 

been  well  named  the  "Miracle  of  the  Marne." 
It  is  now  my  great  honor  to  present  to  this 
company  the  man  whose  name  will  be  forever 
enshrined  in  History  as  the  Author  of  that 
glorious  Victory, 

Marshal  Joffre. 


SPEECHES    VIII 

T/IEODORE  ROOSEVELT— 
THE  AMERICAN  CITIZEN 

One  of  Several  Speeches 

made  at  Memorial  Service  for  Theodore  Roosevelt, 

Presbyterian  Church,  Evanston 

'||^^^|HE  part  of  this  service  assigned 
to  me  should  have  been  given  to 
a  preacher,  for  no  better  text 
for  a  sermon  on  Citizenship 
could  be  found  than  the  life  of 
Theodore  Roosevelt. 
Few  of  us  can  hope  to  follow  him  as  a  "schol- 
ar in  politics,"  and  probably  none  of  us  will 
get  the  chance  to  imitate  him  as  President, 
but  we  may  all  —  to  the  extent  of  our  ability 
—  try  to  follow  his  shining  example  as  a 
Citizen. 

He  was  the  greatest  American  Citizen  of  his 
generation,  as  well  as  one  of  the  greatest 
Citizens  of  the  World.  We  loved  him  as  an 

203 


2  o\  Sketches  and  Speeches 

American  Citizen  and  we  were  proud  of  him  as 
a  Citizen  of  the  World.  As  a  Citizen  of  the 
World  he  made  friends  among  many  of  the 
earth's  great  ones.  Emperors,  Kings,  and 
Statesmen  made  much  of  him,  but  he  remained 
always,  and  in  all  circumstances,  distinc- 
tively an  American  —  the  most  representa- 
tive American  known  to  the  Great  World. 

As  such  we  honor  him,  but  it  was  for  his 
more  ordinary  qualities  as  an  American  that  he 
was  so  greatly  beloved.  First,  he  was  thor- 
oughly democratic.  Born  of  one  of  the  old 
Dutch  Knickerbocker  families,  he  was  as  near 
an  aristocrat  as  this  country  produces.  But 
college  professors,  literary  people,  and  forward 
looking  reformers  were  no  more  ardent  in  their 
admiration  for  him  than  the  Plainsman,  the 
Cowboy,  and  the  Common  Soldier.  He  could 
be  at  home  with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men 
and  make  them  feel  at  home  with  him  —  and 
there  is  no  truer  mark  of  a  gentleman  than 
that.  The  relations  between  the  different 
classes  of  our  citizens  is  one  of  our  great  prob- 
lems. What  a  help  it  would  be  to  a  proper  un- 
derstanding of  each  other  and  to  a  fair  adjust- 
ment of  all  our  disputes  and  jealousies  if  all 
American  Citizens  could  cultivate  the  spirit  of 
Theodore  Roosevelt! 


Theodore  1(00  seve/t  205 

Second:  He  was  ardently  patriotic.  People 
might  differ  on  his  policies.  Indeed,  everybody 
was  enthusiastic  about  his  actions  as  a  public 
man  —  either  for  them  or  against  them.  He 
was  the  kind  of  character  that  one  had  either 
to  follow  or  oppose  —  and  his  opponents  some- 
times outnumbered  his  supporters  —  but  in  all 
his  career,  no  one  ever  questioned  the  purity  of 
his  patriotism.  He  would  gladly  have  died  for 
his  country  at  any  moment  of  his  life.  As  he 
grew  older  he  lost  none  of  his  fiery  enthusiasm 
for  any  cause  he  believed  in,  but  he  gathered 
wisdom  with  the  years,  and  in  the  troublous 
times  of  the  Great  War,  I  think  his  was  the 
truest  American  voice,  and  his  fearless  leader- 
ship appealed  to  all  red-blooded  patriotic  men. 
The  word  "neutrality"  was  not  in  his  vocabu- 
lary, and  he  was  the  first  of  our  leaders  to 
recognize  the  moral  issues  involved  in  the  War. 
Having  recognized  them,  nothing  short  of 
actual  participation  in  the  fighting  would  sat- 
isfy him,  but  disappointed  in  that  he  had  to  al- 
low his  four  fine  sons  to  do  his  fighting  for  him. 

His  patriotism  was  marked  by  unfailing 
courage  and  sublime  faith.  He  never  shirked 
any  problem  and  he  never  lost  faith  in  the 
United  States  of  America.  In  the  difficult  pe- 
riod of  reconstruction  and  readjustment  upon 


2  o6  sketches  and  Speeches 

which  we  are  now  entered,  may  we  all  be 
guided  by  a  similar  spirit! 

Third:  He  was  clean  and  true  in  his  private 
life.  So  many  great  men  in  history  have  not 
stood  the  test  of  private  morality  that  this 
common  virtue  is  worth  emphasizing  in  honor- 
ing a  great  man  dead.  It  used  to  be  considered 
that  so  long  as  a  public  man  was  publicly  hon- 
est, it  was  impertinent  for  any  one  to  inquire 
into  his  private  life.  /\nd  even  after  we  had 
outgrown  that  notion,  how  many  public  men 
have  had  private  skeletons  in  their  closets 
which  had  to  be  closely  guarded  by  their 
friends. 

But  the  man  whom  we  honor  tonight  stood 
with  all  the  force  of  his  great  personality  and 
his  commanding  position  for  whatsoever  things 
were  pure,  lovely,  and  of  good  report  in  Amer- 
ican life.  He  was  a  far-seeing  Statesman  and  he 
knew  that  any  nation  stands  or  falls  by  what 
its  homes  mean  to  it  —  by  the  way  it  regards 
womanhood  —  by  the  decency  of  the  average 
life  of  its  citizens. 

And  so  by  pen  and  speech,  and  above  all  by 
personal  example,  he  stood  for  the  sanctity  of 
the  x^merican  home.  Perhaps  no  virtue  is  more 
conspicuously  needed  in  American  life  than  the 
virtue  of  reverence  —  reverence  for  authority, 


Theodore  Roosevelt  207 

for  Law,  for  Home,  for  God.  And  in  this  direc- 
tion, no  influence  in  our  day  was  more  helpful 
and  beneficent  than  the  private  life  and  char- 
acter of  the  Great  American  Citizen,  whose 
passing  we  mourn  tonight. 

There  are  many  other  attributes  of  our  dead 
hero  which  might  be  enumerated,  but  they  are 
known  to  all.  I  have  touched  lightly  upon 
what  seem  to  me  to  be  the  fundamental  ele- 
ments of  his  noble  character  as  an  American 
Citizen.  When  a  man  stands  right  with  his 
home,  with  his  community,  with  his  country 
and  with  the  world,  you  may  be  sure  he  stands 
right  with  his  God.  During  the  past  four  years, 
this  world  has  lost  and  The  World  Beyond  has 
gained  many  of  our  bravest  and  best.  Yet  I 
think  there  was  some  excitement  in  Heaven 
last  Monday  morning,  and  that  myriads  of 
spirits  rushed  to  meet  Theodore  Roosevelt, 
saying  to  each  other,  "Here  comes  a  Great 
Soul!" 


SPEECHES    IX 


WAH  AND  CREDIT 

An  Address  Delivered  at 

Luncheon  of  the  Canadian  Club,  Montreal, 

January,  1923 


My  Lord  Shaughnesseyy  Mr.  Chairman  and 
Gentlemen: 

i^^t^iW^}^^^^  ^^  ^^y  ^^^^  ^^^^  -^  keenly  ap- 
y^^m^H^^^^  preciate  the  honor  and  privi- 


lege  of  being  your  guest  today 
^  As  I  have  been  a  Member  of  the 
S®^fcS  Canadian  Club  of  Chicago  for 

many  years,  I  feel  that  I  am  al- 
most one  of  you  and  I  can,  therefore,  speak  to 
you  very  informally.  I  want  you  to  know  that 
I  did  not  travel  all  the  way  from  Chicago  to 
make  this  speech.  My  egotism  would  hardly 
carry  me  so  far!  I  am  here  primarily  on  a  very 
pleasant  mission;  namely,  as  a  Member  of  an 
American  Bankers'  Committee  to  confer  with 
a  Canadian  Bankers'  Committee  on  Canadian- 

209 


2  I  o  Sketches  and  Speeches 

American  Relations  and  to  see  what  can  be 
done  by  Bankers  to  improve  and  cement  them 
into  an  abiding  friendship.  I  do  not  know 
what  can  be  accomplished  by  these  Commit- 
tees, but  I  can  assure  you  that  we  are  glad  to 
be  here  and  anxious  to  try.  The  business  done 
between  the  two  countries  runs  about  a  billion 
and  a  half  dollars  per  annum.  You  are  our 
second  best  customer,  our  best  being  the 
Mother  Country.  I  think  we  are  your  best 
customer.  About  two-thirds  of  your  imports 
come  from  the  United  States,  and  fully  half 
of  your  exports  go  there.  Surely  there  is  occa- 
sion for  the  friendly  and  cordial  relations  which 
already  exist  between  us,  and  if  these  can  be 
still  further  improved  it  ought  to  be  done. 

Bankers'  Speeches  are  nearly  all  on  one  sub- 
ject these  days  —  the  financial  aftermath  of 
the  Great  War  —  how  far  the  world  has  re- 
covered from  it  and  when,  if  ever,  it  will  get 
back  to  stabilized  conditions. 

General  Sherman  truly  said  that  "War  is 
Hell,"  and  if  I  remember  my  early  training, 
Hell  was  supposed  to  last  a  long  time!  One  of 
War's  characteristics  is  that  it  does  not  stop 
when  it  is  over.  Financially  the  Great  War  is 
still  going  on,  and  no  one  here  is  going  to  live 
long  enough  to  see  the  last  of  it.  Financially, 


War  and  Credit  211 

war  is  a  debauch.  Conservatism,  which  usually 
rules  finance,  is  thrown  over.  No  extravagance, 
no  borrowing,  no  inflation  of  credit  is  too  great 
if  only  it  will  help  win  the  war.  To  understand 
what  war  does  to  finance  we  must  see  clearly 
the  distinction  between  money  and  credit.  To 
illustrate:  If  a  needy  acquaintance  comes  to 
me  with  a  hard-luck  story  and  asks  for  a  tem- 
porary loan  of  fifty  dollars,  and  if  I  am  soft 
enough  to  grant  it,  I  take  fifty  dollars  out  of 
my  pocket,  kiss  it  good-bye,  and  hand  it  to 
him.  That  is  a  loan  of  money.  But  if  a  custom- 
er of  mine  comes  into  my  bank,  and  asks  for 
a  loan  of  fifty  thousand  dollars  and  I  grant  it, 
no  money  is  involved  in  the  transaction.  He 
simply  makes  a  note  and  my  discount  clerk 
makes  an  entry  or  two  on  the  books,  and  be- 
fore my  customer  has  left  the  bank  its  loans 
and  its  deposits  are  each  increased  $50,000.00 
but  there  is  neither  more  nor  less  money  in 
the  bank  than  when  he  came  in.  That  is  an 
expansion  of  credit.  By  the  use  of  a  mere  scrap 
of  paper  and  a  few  figures  on  a  ledger  the  cus- 
tomer and  I  have  created  a  credit  which,  so  far 
as  meeting  his  requirements  is  just  as  good  as 
cash.  Perhaps  next  day  my  bank  needs  to  in- 
crease its  reserves  in  the  Federal  Reserve  Bank, 
and  then  I  endorse  my  customer's  note  for  $50,- 


2  12  Sketches  and  Speeches 

ooo.oo  send  it  over  to  the  Federal  Reserve  Bank 
and  they  re-discount  it  and  place  the  proceeds 
to  the  credit  of  my  bank.  We  now  have  bank 
deposits  increased  $100,000.00  and  credit  ex- 
panded a  similar  amount  by  that  scrap  of  paper 
and  further  figures  on  a  ledger.  Or  perhaps  my 
bank  needs  cash,  and  at  my  request  the  Feder- 
al Reserve  Bank  takes  that  customer's  note, 
puts  with  it  at  least  forty  per  cent  in  gold 
($20,000.00)  and  issues  to  my  bank  $50,000.00 
in  Federal  Reserve  Notes  —  another  form  of 
credit.  We  now  have  an  expansion  of  the  cur- 
rency of  $50,000.00,  but  the  only  real  money 
that  all  this  has  required  is  the  $20,000.00  gold, 
and  it  is  hidden  away  in  the  vaults  of  the  gov- 
ernment as  a  reserve.  All  the  banks  are  doing 
this  kind  of  thing  all  the  time.  If  business  is 
brisk  they  do  it  on  a  larger  and  larger  scale. 
Under  the  stimulus  of  war  you  can  easily  see 
that  the  expansion  of  credit  goes  on  most 
merrily!  The  Government  needs  enormous 
sums  of  money  to  carry  on  the  war,  and  when 
it  borrows  it  asks  not  for  fifty  thousand  dol- 
lars, but  for  one,  two  or  possibly  five  billions  of 
dollars  at  once  —  and  gets  them  promptly. 

The  question  is  often  asked  "Where  does  all 
the  money  come  from?"  The  answer,  of 
course,  is  "It  does  not  come  from  anywhere." 


PVar  and  Credit  213 

It  is  not  a  money  transaction.  It  is  a  credit 
transaction,  and  goes  through  the  same 
processes  as  my  customer's  note.  Now  so  long 
as  my  customer's  note  is  good  and  for  a  legiti- 
mate purpose,  and  so  long  as  the  currency  is 
fortified  by  a  gold  reserve  sufficient  to  make  it 
redeemable,  all  is  well.  That  is  modern  finance 
in  its  simplest  form.  In  times  of  peace  such 
credits  are  created,  used,  and  redeemed  with 
perfect  regularity.  But  war  puts  a  terrific 
•strain  upon  the  system.  The  expansion  which 
takes  place  is  accompanied  naturally  by  rising 
wages,  rising  prices  and  enormous  paper  prof- 
its to  business.  This  is  well  named  "In- 
flation" suggesting  the  expansion  of  a  gas 
balloon.  And  after  the  fighting  is  over  reaction 
is  certain  and,  strange  to  say,  the  reaction 
comes  so  suddenly  that  it  still  resembles  a 
balloon  —  a  busted  one.  The  Great  War,  last- 
ing over  four  years,  and  being  a  struggle  be- 
tween the  greatest  commercial  nations,  pro- 
duced an  expansion  of  credit  that  no  one  would 
have  believed  possible.  When  it  started  you 
remember  we  all  said  it  could  not  last  Kitch- 
ener's three  years  because  the  money  would 
give  out.  But  it  lasted  over  four  years,  and  it 
was  not  brought  to  an  end  by  financial  ex- 
haustion on  either  side.  On  the  side  of  the 


2  14  sketches  and  Speeches 

Victors  the  war  boom  on  prices  and  profits  went 
on  of  its  own  momentum  for  nearly  two  years 
after  the  Armistice.  But  then,  along  about 
August,  1920,  in  England,  in  Canada,  in  the 
United  States,  in  Japan  and  in  other  countries 
only  indirectly  affected,  almost  over  night, 
the  reaction  came  and  came  with  a  crash! 
Then  followed  the  cancellation  of  orders,  the 
fall  in  prices,  the  diminution  of  trade,  the  con- 
sequent non-employment,  the  writing  down 
of  inventories,  the  wiping  out  of  profits.  A  try- 
ing experience,  but  perhaps  it  is  as  well  that 
few  people  should  make  permanent  profits  out 
of  war!  But  while,  as  I  have  shown,  credit  is 
easily  expanded  and  enormous  Government  ex- 
penditures are  easily  made,  the  reverse  is  not 
true.  The  debts  thus  created  are  as  real  as  if 
actualmoneyhadpassed  in  theirmaking  andean 
only  be  paid  slowly  and  painfully.  Consequent- 
ly, the  people  not  only  awaken  to  hard  times 
but  have  to  face  unheard  of  taxes.  I  said  war 
was  a  debauch,  and  its  aftermath  is  like  the 
cold  gray  dawn  of  the  "morning  after."  I  need 
not  dwell  on  it.  All  our  experiences  are  so  re- 
cent that  we  have  not  forgotten  them.  Rather 
let  me  now  ask  "How  far  has  the  world  re- 
covered normal  peace-time  financial  condi- 
tions?" My  answer  is  that  the  further  off  we 


War  and  Credit  215 

look  the  more  pessimistic  is  the  picture  and  the 
nearer  home  we  look,  the  more  optimistic  do 
we  become.  Look  at  that  great  world  in  it- 
self— Russia.  There  war  and  revolution  have 
completely  destroyed  credit  both  internally 
and  externally.  The  currency  would  be  a  joke 
if  it  were  not  a  tragedy.  Orderly  government, 
individual  freedom,  decent  living  conditions 
have  almost  disappeared.  Tyranny  and  semi- 
starvation  are  the  lot  of  the  majority.  Civili- 
zation has  broken  down,  and  the  once  great 
Russian  Empire  is  disrupted  and  digraced. 
That  is  the  worst  picture.  Come  a  little  nearer 
and  we  have  Austria  —  bankrupt,  and  in  the 
hands  of  a  Receiver  —  conditions  only  less 
frightful  than  those  of  Russia  because  Com- 
munism was  overthrown.  Then  we  come  to 
Germany,  and  we  are  at  once  confronted  with 
the  greatest  financial  puzzle  of  all  time  —  the 
Reparations  Question.  I  could  discuss  that 
question  all  the  afternoon,  but  I  shall  confine 
myself  to  a  few  brief  observations. 

First:  Germany  cannot  escape  the  financial 
chaos  which  reaction  from  the  inflation  of  her 
currency  must  bring.  Fiat  money  manufac- 
tured by  the  busy  printing  presses  always 
creates  a  fictitious  "boom,"  and  is  inevitably 
followed  by  a  crash.  A  trillion  marks  cannot  be 


2  1 6  sketches  and  Speeches 

stabilized  —  except  by  cancellation.  I  believe 
Germany  deliberately  planned  financial  chaos 
for  the  purpose  of  making  the  payment  of 
cash  reparations  impossible.  After  making  a 
better  bargain  on  reparations  she  would  begin 
upbuilding  her  finances  from  the  ruins. 

Second:  While  my  sympathies  are  all  with 
France,  my  judgment  is  against  the  likelihood 
of  success  for  the  course  she  is  now  pursuing. 
There  is  indeed  to  my  mind  only  one  chance 
of  France  collecting  any  great  sum  by  taking 
Germany  by  the  throat,  and  I  am  afraid  she 
will  have  to  occupy  Berlin  before  that  chance 
becomes  a  possibility.  It  is  well  known  (al- 
though seldom  referred  to)  that  rich  Germans 
and  German  Banks  have  still  a  large  amount 
of  foreign  securities  and  own  large  balances  in 
foreign  countries  such  as  England,  Switzer- 
land, United  States  and  South  America.  The 
sale  of  their  paper  marks  to  speculators  in 
these  countries  helped  them  to  create  these 
foreign  balances.  Now  if  France  can  compel 
Germany  to  force  her  nationals  to  turn  over 
these  foreign  securities  and  balances  to  the 
German  Government  and  take  German  Gov- 
ernment Bonds  in  payment  —  just  as  England 
did  during  the  war  —  then  Germany  could 
pay  to  France  possibly  four  or  five  billion 


War  and  Credit  217 

marks  on  a  gold  basis,  and  France  would  thus 
get  something  worth  taking  home.  I  would  be 
delighted  to  see  France  do  that,  but  if  it  be  im- 
possible then  I  can  see  no  hope  that  France 
will  collect  anything  worth  while. 

I  confess  I  am  extremely  pessimistic  on  the 
Continental  situation.  I  am  afraid  it  must  get 
worse  before  it  begins  to  get  better.  Perhaps  an 
economic  conference  called  by  the  United 
States  might  accomplish  something  for  a  work- 
ing basis  of  improvement,  and  I  am  not  without 
hope  that  this  may  come  about.  Most  intel- 
ligent Americans  are  far  from  proud  of  the 
role  their  country  is  now  playing  with  regard 
to  Europe,  but  the  vast  majority  of  ordinary 
voters —  "the  man  on  the  street"  type,  say, 
"Why  should  we  mix  in  Europe's  troubles  and 
quarrels?"  Our  voters  are  not  homogeneous.  We 
have  the  German  vote,  the  Irish  vote,  the 
Italian  vote  and  so  on  to  be  considered  by  our 
politicians  who  are  mostly  about  as  courageous 
leaders  as  a  bunch  of  rabbits. 

I  can  only  hope  that  some  way  may  be  found 
to  use  the  surplus  gold  and  abundant  credit  of 
the  United  States  for  the  financial  rehabilita- 
tion of  the  world.  It  is  a  difficult,  if  not  a 
hopeless  task,  for  it  must  be  done  on  a  business 
basis  —  not  a  sentimental  one. 


2  I  8  sketches  and  Speeches 

But  now  we  come  nearer  home,  and  cross- 
ing the  channel  we  take  a  glance  at  old  England. 
And  in  spite  of  her  problems,  her  anxieties  and 
her  world-burdens,  I,  for  one,  drop  much  of 
my  pessimism.  Here,  although  she  bore  the 
chief  financial  burden  of  the  long  war,  and 
loaned  huge  sums  to  all  of  her  European  Allies, 
there  is  no  mad  resort  to  the  printing  press,  no 
whining  for  cancellation  of  just  debts,  but  with 
dogged  British  courage  she  faces  her  colossal 
problems  of  financial  and  industrial  recovery. 

Slowly  but  surely  the  British  pound  sterling 
regains  its  preeminent  place  in  the  finances  of 
the  world.  As  an  example  to  other  nations  she 
has,  amid  all  of  her  perplexities,  begun  pay- 
ments on  account  of  her  debts  to  the  United 
States.  I  am  far  from  being  blind  to  the  long, 
difficult  road  Great  Britain  must  travel  before 
anything  like  normal  financial  peace  condi- 
tions can  obtain  within  her  shores,  but  my 
faith  in  her  solvency,  her  integrity  and  her 
ultimate  triumph  is  unshaken  and  I  have  little 
patience  with  some  of  her  own  citizens  who 
prophesy  failure  and  disaster. 

Drawing  the  circle  of  our  vision  narrower 
now  we  come  to  this  continent,  and  here  in- 
cluding Canada  with  the  United  States,  if  I 
could  forget  the  European  situation  I  could  be- 


War  and  Credit  219 

come  quite  optimistic.  We  have  only  to  re- 
member conditions  in  192 1  to  feel  certain  that 
great  progress  towards  financial  recovery  from 
the  war  has  been  made.  All  fundamental  in- 
dustries are  on  the  up-grade.  The  farmer  with 
us  in  the  United  States  has  worked  out  of  his 
debts  and  difficulties  about  half  way.  Last 
year's  good  crops  and  the  rise  in  the  price  of 
farm  products  have  helped  him  greatly.  Unless 
the  foreign  situation  clears  up  I  am  rather 
afraid  of  a  relapse  in  prices  for  farm  products, 
but  if  that  can  be  avoided,  I  do  not  see  any 
reason  why  the  up-trend  of  general  business 
should  not  continue  through  the  year  on  which 
we  are  now  entered.  Financially,  the  United 
States  may  be  considered  over  the  effects 
of  the  war.  While  some  things  are  yet  out 
of  line  —  such  as  coal  and  railway  freights 
—  and  while  taxes  are  still  too  high,  there  is  a 
general  feeling  of  conservative  optimism  with 
us.  Labor  is  fully  employed,  the  people  are  as 
extravagant  and  as  good  spenders  as  ever, 
money,  or  rather  credit,  is  abundant,  and  on  the 
whole  we  should  be  very  thankful  for  the 
measure  of  prosperity  we  are  enjoying.  I  imag- 
ine, and  I  hope  that  your  experience  in  Canada 
runs  parallel  to  ours.  With  her  comparative- 
ly small  population  and  her  great  natural  re- 


2  2  o  Sketches  and  Speeches 

sources  Canada  should  be  about  the  first  coun- 
try to  completely  recover  from  the  financial 
effects  of  the  Great  War.  No  one  who  loves  her 
as  I  do  can  fail  to  foresee  her  brilliant  future 
and  rejoice.  And  this  brings  me  in  conclusion  to 
where  I  started.  I  believe  not  only  in  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  friendliest  and  most  neighbor- 
ly relations  between  you  and  us,  but  in  a 
closer  union  of  all  the  English  speaking  people 
of  the  world.  I  believe  that  the  destinies  of 
mankind,  the  salvation  of  civilization  and  the 
hope  of  permanent  peace  are  by  God's  provi- 
dence largely  in  the  hands  of  the  English  speak- 
ing people.  I  assure  you  that  appearances  to 
the  contrary  notwithstanding,  that  is  the  sen- 
timent of  the  best  Americans.  Indeed,  I  have 
no  hesitation  in  saying  that  the  character,  the 
education  and  the  culture  of  Americans  may 
be  accurately  determined  by  their  response  to 
that  sentiment.  All  the  English  speaking 
peoples  were  on  one  side  in  the  War.  Surely 
that  unity  welded  in  the  fiery  furnace  of  war 
should  be  continued  until  conference  and  con- 
ciliation have  taken  the  place  of  blood  and  iron 
in  the  settlement  of  international  disputes. 
Nowhere  else  on  earth  is  there  even  a  vision  of 
Permanent  Peace.  What  could  be  more  natural 
than  the  warmest  friendship  and  co-operation 


TVar  and  Credit  221 

between  these  peoples?  They  are  one  in  lan- 
guage, law  and  literature — one  in  love  of  free- 
dom, justice  and  opportunity  for  all.  All  have 
experienced  the  beneficent  results  of  ordered 
freedom,  the  foundation  of  which  was  laid  at 
Runnymede,  and  the  capstone  put  on  at  York- 
town.  They  are  admirers  alike  of  the  three  great- 
est declarations  on  individual  freedom,  Magna 
Charta,  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and 
the  American  Constitution,  all  written  in  one 
language.  They  are  equal  followers  of  Black- 
stone  and  Marshall,  co-heirs  of  Shakespeare 
and  Carlyle,  of  Longfellow  and  Emerson  and 
all  the  other  great  ones  of  English  literature. 
They  are  today  more  than  ever  in  the  van- 
guard of  light  and  leading.  They  look  with 
longing  but  hopeful  eyes  to  the  time  which 
prophets  have  foreseen  and  of  which  poets 
have  sung,  when  the  ideas  of  the  Napoleons  and 
the  Kaisers  will  be  discarded  and  the  teachings 
of  Jesus  Christ  shall  have  been  adopted  by 
mankind  and  applied  to  the  Government  of 
the  World. 


'Then  let  us  pray  that  come  it  may 
{As  come  it  will  for  a  that) 
'That  sense  and  worth  o'er  a   the  earth 
Shall  bear  the  gree  and  a  that. 

For  a  that  and  a  that. 
It's  coming  yet  for  a  that 
'That  man  to  man  the  world  o'er 
Shall  hrithers  be  for  a  that." 


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